Them and Us
by TheShyCritic
Summary: Emmett McCarthy is the older brother to twins Edward and Alice. The trio lead a pretty normal life… well at least until two years ago, before the vampire race grew fed-up with having to hide their true identities from the humans. What's in store for the human siblings in a new world, where vampires rule? Alice/Jasper Emmett/Rosalie Edward/Bella. Rated M to be safe (Language/Gore)
1. Chapter 1

**Hey so I decided to try out a new story. I will be trying my hardest to update this every day but don't worry, the other one is still going and this is kind of an experiment. I'm trying to figure out if it'd be better if I wrote in shorter chapters so that I can update more often. **

**Still **_**mainly **_**Alice/Jasper as I adore them as characters but there is a LOT of Rose/Emmett and some Bella/Edward too. **

**Here goes:**

**Chapter 1**

Alice's POV 

It was pulsing down with rain as we continued to run up the abandoned road.

I was trying my hardest to keep up with the pumping figure ahead of me but my throat was typically starting to constrict.

Not that surprising really, since the condition wasn't that much of a hard thing to trigger, it was only a matter of time before the stress and panic of the situation caused my breathing to harden.

I knew exactly what I needed but realisation hit me with a sickening sense of dread as I rummaged frantically through the pockets of my short leather jacket looking for it.

I must've dropped the inhaler during the confusion of being attacked, probably at that critical point where we had stopped absolutely everything to start running for our lives.

"Shit!" I cursed under my breath.

Someone who didn't know any different might have assumed that my horror came from the fact my windpipe was traitorously closing in on itself at the worst possible time with nothing at all available to loosen it, but the more terrifyingly ominous detail of this was that getting a new inhaler was just as risky as suffering through an asthma attack without one.

"What is it!?" my brother bellowed from beside me.

I turned my head slightly to give him a sceptical look.

As you would expect from twins our strides were identical as we pushed ourselves forwards in perfect symmetry with one another, our_ looks_ however, couldn't be any more different. It seemed we had both taken full advantage of the fact that we were purely fraternal instead of the identical kind of twin.

"Dropped my inhaler!" I wheezed, struggling to hear my own, already strained voice, over the thundering rain.

"Alice!" Edward roared angrily.

I fought the temptation to roll my eyes. I was already irritated with _myself_, did he really have to be so cynical?

"Well I am so very sorry I grabbed hold of the short straw when fate decided to give only one of usasthma." I thundered back with as much strength as I could muster. I knew it wasn't a very good argument and I was being extremely immature especially in the light of our circumstances, but I wasn't one to admit my mistakes very easily, especially to the likes of Edward who always acted like he was years older than me instead of minutes.

The internal attack hadn't climaxed yet and I was used to supressing it until I could handle it no longer, but if I didn't stop running and get the help I needed soon, it wouldn't really matter whether our potential pursuers caught up with _me_ or not.

We had been running for almost an hour now, after splitting up from our companions once we had been taken by surprise. I was nearly sure _they_ hadn't chosen to come after _us_, but, as always, Emmett was insistent that we didn't stop until we reached somewhere safe.

That was easy for him to say. He had always had a natural knack for sports.

"Well if I knew you'd drop the freaking pump every time we needed to get away then I'd have_ asked_ fate for the asthma myself." Edward countered heatedly, although I didn't miss the worried tone to his voice.

I glared, opening my mouth to say something else but decided against it when the moving form in front of us slowed down suddenly (having heard the commotion) and looked over his shoulder.

One death glare from Emmett was all it took to make both me and Edward stop aiming them at each other, shut up, and continue running up the road in silence.

Finally, when the familiar black shapes of warning were just starting to swarm their way in front of my eyes and I was wheezing on the verge of never be able to use my voice again, we made it to one of our hideouts.

We entered the abandoned factory cautiously, making sure that it hadn't been discovered by _them _and when we were certain it was just the three of us there, Edward rushed over to where I was, forgetting his annoyance with me, which had already been replaced by concern.

"Hold your breath." He ordered "The pressure might help to release your airways."

I complied. He was good at that sort of stuff, I was sure he was going to become a doctor one day. Well that was before everything in the world had suddenly turned to hell, a _living_ hell, for everyone that was _still_ living that is.

Unsurprisingly Edwards's advice worked and very slowly my lungs began to embrace air like a long lost friend and my heart started to beat in its normal rhythmic state.

"You alright kid?" Emmett asked in his gruff voice.

My intention was to nod at him but my eyes were shut too tightly and my head felt too heavy.

I knew I looked like a complete fool, standing there, eyes scrunched up and chest heaving, but I was afraid that if I didn't get enough air to fill my lungs then I'd suffocate to death.

Eventually I forced my eyes to open and was immediately aware of Emmett and Edward staring at me nervously. Edwards normally messy hair was plastered to his head, the rain had made it look darker, browner then its usual penny bronze and Emmett's mane wasn't much better either, his thick black curls were dripping too.

I held up my hand attempting to put them at ease.

"I'm fine." I whispered.

Emmett chest dropped, as he let out a relieved '_whoosh'_ of air while Edward ran a hand through his soaked locks, muttering something inconsolable under his breath.

Emmett turned around for a second, finally trying to catch his own breath from our run by wrapping his arms over his head and letting out a noise that a Water-buffalo would be proud of.

Naturally, Edward must have been thinking along the same lines I was, as we took one look at each other and had to fight the snickers that were threatening to escape our lips in response to our older brother's animalistic way of catching his breath.

Emmett turned around just in time to notice us miming his actions and narrowed his grey/green eyes at us, frustrated.

"I can't believe you! You act like the best of friends now but when we're running to actually keep our pulses, I have to stop _you two _from being the ones to rip each other's heads off." He finished shaking his own head in disbelief.

We just shrugged our shoulders at him. We were twins, what did he expect?

"Do you think the others are ok?" I asked picturing our friends, Angela, Jessica, Tyler, Mike; even Lauren who I wasn't too fond of made an appearance in my head. I hoped they managed to split up and get away too.

"They'll be fine." Emmett said, eyes softening even though I could tell that he was uncertain. "You know the motto, split up and-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah… I know" I cut him off. "Split up and hope you're not the ones they go after." I finished for him repeating the rule that had basically been drilled into my head.

"Ems right Ali." Edward commented, knowing the guilt I was feeling. "The only thing that counts is family."

I nodded, knowing they were right. I was grateful to have my siblings; some people had absolutely no one, nothing left, so in some ways I was one of the lucky ones.

We all took a moment to look into each other's identical green eyes, grateful for another day where we were all still here. Grateful, for another day were the vampire's hadn't gotten to us.

"Well" Em sighed. "I'll take the first watch, you two make sure that we have enough gasoline left from the last time we stayed here, just in case we need to start a fire." He said seriously. "Then go get some rest." he commanded.

Edward and I nodded obediently.

It was going to be a long night, but it always was.

**Well…What do you think? Just for today I have posted the second chapter to get you all interested.**

**Emmie x **


	2. Chapter 2

**IMPORTANT: Ok so this story is still a little similar in regards to Twilight but I've made it so if a vampire wants to change a human they need to drink a little blood from there victim and then kill them in order to activate the venom that makes a human become a vampire too. Finally fire doesn't kill them unless they have definitely been dismembered first but it does hurt and slow them down a lot.**

**I purposely made this a long chapter to cover history. **

**Chapter 2 **

Alice's POV

I continuously flipped the top of the lighter I was holding open and shut, watching hypnotically as the flame roared to life only to die again once it was consumed by the hollow lid.

_Open and shut _

_Open and shut _

_Open and shut_

Turning my head to look at the sleeping forms of my two brothers, I grinned triumphantly. They didn't like me keeping watch, in fact they hated it, but I didn't care and I made sure they knew that too. I wasn't some itty bitty irksome girl, a damsel in distress that needed protecting from the big bad vampires.

Life might have turned into some kind of weird mythical existence but it wasn't _that_ easy. There were no heroes, there was no good to oppose the evil and there were definitely no happy endings.

This meant I couldn't _afford_ to be reliant on them all of the time, even if my brothers were unbearably overprotective.

I still couldn't make myself understand how one day everything was fine, normal, and then randomly _they_ decided that the world belonged to them (as well as all the humans in it) and swarmed in like a bunch of locust, destroying everything and anything that got in their way.

I shook my head rapidly in an attempt to shake the thoughts away, I hated thinking about them, and I hated felling as though I was a deer in open season, an open season that was _never going to end._

I rubbed the rough scar on my neck, the one that never seemed to stop stinging and sighed because like most of the time my mind wandered back to the day, almost two years ago now, when everything I thought I knew about the universe changed forever and we were thrown into a world that could have made the setting for a dark medieval fairy-tale.

10th April 2011

Edward and I had just celebrated our 16th Birthday. Emmett was 19 and he had come back home to Forks, visiting in-between a baseball scholarship. He had always been an amazing baseball player.

In fact, we were on our way back from picking him up from the airport when it happened. We were stuck in traffic but I remember sitting in the back of the car, contently crammed between my two brothers, the three of us all chatting aimlessly together. We were all just so blissfully glad to be reunited again, one big happy family.

"So what's college like Emmett?" Edward asked eagerly while I rolled my eyes exasperatedly, it was just like Edward to ask something_ school_-related.

"Cool!" Emmett responded cheerily. "There's dozens of hot girls to-" but before he could continue he caught our moms scolding eye in the windshield "Um… – to _talk_ to" he coughed, cheeks reddening ever so slightly while I made a face and mimed sticking two fingers down my throat towards Edward who grinned.

"Stop making fun of me." Emmett moaned in a fake, childishly high, voice, poking me in my side.

"Deal with it" I grinned poking him back, which resulted in a poking match that Edward got dragged into too.

"Will the three of you cut it out?" Dad laughed.

We were all so absorbed in our bickering that we didn't even notice them at first, the figures walking down the busy road in Seattle, slinking between the jam-packed cars like silent ghosts. The first glimpse_ I_ actually got of them was when the sun peaked out from between an array of clouds and their skin started shimmering in the light.

"Whoa" I gasped leaning over Edward to press my face against the window.

"Wha-" Edward started to ask before he caught site of them too.

We stared at them memorised, memorised by the mystery of it all. I knew it was rude to stare but they were just so… so _beautiful_.

"W-what the hell" Dad stuttered.

"They're gorgeous" Mom gushed.

It was so _un-real_ that I didn't even think to question what they were doing here in the first place.

They were walking at a remarkably slow pace, some even stopping to linger near particular cars, which I thought was strange, not that the situation was remotely normal. There were a bunch of stunningly beautiful people walking down the centre of a busy road in the middle of a traffic-jam what _wasn't _strange about that?

"Maybe they're some kind of hippie pressure group or something. You know '_Stop global warming_', _'Emit less co2'_ you know… _fanatics_." Emmett murmured inventing his own explanation when no one offered one of their own

I continued to gaze through the window at them and was taken aback when I caught a flash of red in one of the stranger's eyes. Even though they were still quite a distance away from where my family and I were sitting, I _swore_ I saw red.

"Wow! I think there eyes are red!" I exclaimed, voicing my thoughts.

"Shut up Ali!" Edward scoffed "How can there eyes be _red_!" he said making me feel like an idiot.

"I don't know maybe the same reason why their skin is _sparkling_." I replied sarcastically.

"Their skin isn't sparkling!" Edward snorted. "It's probably a reflection of the-"

"Nerd" I said absently.

"Freak" he sneered.

"Loser" I shot back.

"Idio-"

"Shut up!" Emmett hissed cutting us off. "What the hell are they doing?" he said, furrowing his eyebrows."

I turned to look outside again just as one of the beautiful figures opened the door to a car sitting only a few rows in front of ours. The glorious man reached into the vehicle and suddenly dragged a young woman out by her arm.

"What the fuck?" Emmett muttered unbuckling his seatbelt. I knew he was going to go out and try to help the girl, the righteous person that he was, but I had suddenly become filled with terror, despite having been mystified mere moments before. My hand automatically found my pocket and wrapped around my inhaler, bringing it out to give myself a quick puff of air, before grabbing Emmett's arm.

"Don't go" I pleaded with him. "Something's not right."

"Everyone is to stay in the car!" Dad agreed, not liking the scene any more than I did and looking pointedly at Emmett, who slouched back down. The people in the other cars must have felt the same uneasy vibe as we did because no one else moved either except from a man who stepped out of the car that the stranger had just pulled the woman out of.

We all continued to watch, compelled to almost.

There was no doubt the man was the lady's husband or boyfriend as he started screaming at the person to let her go. When the other guy didn't comply and kept the terrified looking woman in his grasp her partner started to move towards them with the intention of freeing her. However, another of the_…things_ appeared behind the man so suddenly that I had to blink my eyes to make sure that I had seen it correctly. This time it was a woman, which made it all the more surprising when she grabbed the bloke by the neck and put him into a headlock.

The guy struggled and I didn't understand why he was getting nowhere with it, he was clearly much bigger than the slim, average sized female holding him and it didn't seem at all possible that she could overpower him, but she was. She hosted the man's body upwards and then all of a sudden he went limp in her arms. I was confused as she dropped him to the ground like a wet towel.

"Oh my God." mom whispered. "Matthew did she just-?"

Mom couldn't finish the question for some reason but it took dad a few seconds to answer.

"Yes" he whispered in a state of shock.

"What?" I blurted worriedly. "What'd she do?"

My parents didn't answer so I turned to Edward only to find him staring at me with the same bewildered expression.

"I don't know" He shrugged, knowing what I had been about to ask. We both turned our questioning expressions to Emmett and when he looked back at us; his skin was looking paler than usual.

"She just – she just broke his spine." He stuttered.

"What?" I gasped hands flying to my lips and eyes widening in disbelief.

"That's impossible!" Edward exclaimed, looking sick.

Emmett didn't bother to answer as we continued to watch the scene in terror. The woman, whose partner was now supposedly lying dead on the floor, was screaming and trying to get to him, but the man holding her didn't loosen his grip. It didn't even look like a tight grasp, yet she still couldn't get free of him. His face was covered with a grin as there were hoots of laughter from the others who were gathering.

I was now completely certain that the eyes of these strangers were a burgundy red colour, a _blood_ red.

Suddenly the man, who we were watching, yanked the woman, who was trying to get away from him, back and grabbed her by the hair, yanking it roughly to the side. He then opened his mouth and like a serpent lunging in for the kill, he bit down on her neck, and it wasn't just a normal bite either, I could actually see the blood running thickly down her throat even from where I was.

Very slowly her agonised screams died down as she started to lose consciousness and her skin drained of all colour. Eventually she was dropped to the ground like a rag doll as I watched on, absolutely traumatised.

A surprised gurgling sound that wanted to be a gasp emitted from my mouth as tears shimmered in my eyes. What had we just witnessed?

It was like the guy had set off a chain of dominos as the other _things _started ripping doors off of random cars too, dragging people out of them and doing to others what the first man had done to _his_ victim, biting their captives, and then dropping them like they were worthless when they were no longer moving.

It happened so fast. I remember being frozen in shock. I had always loved horror movies but now I was in one, and the screaming was unbearable.

"Get out!" dad shouted, turning to look at the three of us. "We need to go… Now!" he demanded.

That seemed to bring us out of the haze we were in.

"Emmett!" mom screamed "make sure you stay with them" she said motioning to me and Edward "in case we get split up stay together." She finished in a panicked tone. We might not have had a clue what was going on but it didn't take a genius to figure out how much danger we were in.

He nodded bluntly, looking so un-Emmett-like, so _scared. _

Just as we were about to step out of the vehicle, the window to our dad's side of the car smashed open and a pale hand burst through, grabbing him around the throat. In an instant he was gone and the only thing left of his presence were the beads of blood sliding down the shattered passenger window, the window he'd just been dragged from.

The four of us screamed in, shock, terror and anguish, as my vision began to blur from the frightened tears that were starting to stream down my face.

There wasn't even enough time to contemplate what had happened.

"Matthew!" mom screamed, forcing her door open and running hysterically from the car.

"Mom. No!" Emmett yelled desperately.

She turned back, for just the tiniest moment, looking as distraught and confused as the panic happening around her, and in that moment a figure suddenly appeared behind her, put his arm around her neck and snapped it before disappearing with her completely.

An agonised cry found my ears, it was so pain ridden, that it hurt to hear, but it didn't take me long to realise that the sound belonged to me as I brought my knees up to my face and wrapped my hands around them in despair.

"N-no" Edward moaned as an unblinking Emmett stared into nothingness, but again we didn't even have enough time to fully process our shock before the door to Edwards side of the car was yanked off its hinges and thrown into the air like it was a piece of tissue paper.

A woman with curly brown hair and red eyes peaked into the car, a beaming smile on her chillingly beautiful face. "Hello" she purred "What do we have here huh?" she asked in a voice that chimed like bells. A man appeared at her side, peering in at the three of us too. He had short sandy coloured hair and his face was the same extremely pale shade as the woman's and just as beautiful.

"Come on Adrianna." He whined. "Kill them and let's move on." He sneered.

If I didn't just see what happened to my parents I probably would have had a different reaction to the word _kill_, but seeing as I had, I just sat there numbly. It appeared like there wasn't any point of doing anything. All hope seemed lost.

People were now trying to run from their cars but blurs of colour intercepted them and they ended up being killed anyway. I had never seen anything like it. I just wanted it all to be a very bad dream. I was going to wake up any minute now in my nice bed that was in my nice room and I was going to go downstairs to find my mom cooking breakfast in the kitchen and my dad sitting at the table reading his newspaper, like they did every morning. I chocked back a sob. This couldn't be happening they couldn't be- couldn't be-"

I _couldn't_ even finish the thought.

I was broken out of my hopeless trance when the bell like chime of the voice spoke again. "But look! They're just so adorable." She gushed to the male. The way she spoke made her sound a lot more patronizing then genuine.

The women reached out a hand, and started to stroke Edwards's cheek with the back of it gently. He shivered in response and I had never seen my twin look more terrified then what he did at that moment, I grabbed his wrist, frightened that he'd also be dragged into oblivion any minute.

"T-take your hand off of him" I said in a slow shaky voice that was wracked with all sorts of emotions. The slight command made the women's eyes snap over to meet mine which I dropped instantly when the chills caused from the piercing pools of red became too much.

The man chuckled.

"Your right A', they're very adorable." He said, and I found myself cowering against Emmett who still seemed emotionless, in order to try and get away from their penetrating looks.

The woman's hand found Edwards other wrist and suddenly he was jerked up and out of the car. I tried to keep my hold on him but his wrist slipped out of my grip like butter.

"Edward!" I yelped in fright.

I couldn't see him anymore but I could hear him yelling out in terror and it was clear that he was struggling against his assailant.

My eyes were darting around all over the place trying to think of anything I could do to help my brother but my mind wasn't thinking straight. In fact, it was too distressed to even get me to notice that the man was still crouched in the doorway staring intently at me.

I was only reminded of this presence when a set of stone cold fingers curled themselves menacingly around my right ankle.

Letting out a screech, caused by a mixture of surprise, fear and pain, I looked up to find his eyes grinning evilly at me.

"Don't worry." He sneered. "I'll make it quick, well as quick as can be." He promised.

I cried out as he tugged me forwards, instinctively reaching behind me for my older brother.

My shrieking seemed to shatter the numbing ice cold barrier that had built itself around Emmett, and I suddenly felt his strong arms wrapping around me in an effort to pull me away from my attacker's tight grasp.

However, even Emmett, who was the strongest person I knew, was no match for this guy, as like Edward had been in mine, I felt myself slip from his hold, as if all of his strength had been turned to nothingness.

Forced out of the car by my ankle, there was nothing to stop my head from smacking against the tarmacked ground as my back hit the floor.

"ALICE!" I heard Edward scream in horror, but despite what was happening I was glad that he still had a voice for me to hear and that the woman hadn't done to him yet, what we had seen happen to a majority of the others taking this route home… the same thing that had happened to our parents…

"Ed-ward…" I mumbled groggily, my head reeling from the blow it had just taken. Everything seemed so bright now, so painfully bright and intense that my eyes were in agony as my brain pounded angrily against my skull. I could feel a sticky wetness on the back of my head and reached a trembling hand up to in investigate. When I brought my hand back to meet my eyes I noticed that it was tainted crimson with blood.

Finally the icy pressure left my ankle but my relief was short lived when it came to settle around my throat instead and I was hauled effortlessly into the air. My feet left the ground and I found myself looking down upon my aggressor who was holding me up by my neck in a chokehold.

I couldn't breathe and this time it wasn't due to my condition because instead of my own windpipe not allowing the air to travel to my lungs it was the man's fist.

Trying pathetically to kick him away with dangling feet, I could hear myself gagging and gasping for air, but all he did in response to my squirming was laugh.

"You really are a pathetic little thing aren't you?" The guy asked with an evil smirk.

"ALICE!" Edward yelled again, a sob wracking through his terrified voice. I rolled my eyes to the left and noticed him being heaved back by the woman, who had his arms pinned to his side with an amused grin forming on her mouth, making my own brother watch as the life was being squeezed out of me.

A shudder ran through my body as I realised that this was all just a big game to them, that they enjoyed watching the torment and destruction going on around them, enjoyed all the screams, all the blood and all the people running to try and get away from what they were doing.

"LET GO OF HER!" Emmett roared bounding from the car and charging at the man holding me. I actually thought he was going to succeed in tackling him to the floor, the way I had seen him do it _countless _of times to the opposition at his football games in the 11th grade but all the man did was swing his left arm to the side, connecting with Emmett's rushing form to send him flying onto the hood of a car _metres _away.

"EM-" I started to choke out but the man's vice like clasp only tightened stopping my voice from escaping my mouth.

"Puh-plea-ea-se" I spluttered, starting to beg.

"Save it!" the man snapped. "Your begging will do nothing now. Humans are no longer relevant for anything other than food." He sneered.

_Humans…food…_

I remembered the blood running down the woman's throat, the strength of these people, their speed. A thought entered my mind that seemed both logical and downright insane at the same time because no way, there was no way, these people were…._vampires_.

If I wasn't in the position I was in, the thought would have been laughable.

As if to prove a point the man pulled me into him, tilting my head forcibly to the side.

My heart pounded against my rib cage so much that it was starting to send spasms of pain up and down my chest. The man leaned in and all of a sudden I felt something hard and sharp graze along the side of my neck making me whimper helplessly.

"St-stop" I gasped but it did nothing as his _teeth_ travelled to my jugular. A word I was only aware of because of Edward and his need to distribute information.

His teeth started to push down on my soft flesh and I somehow knew that I was done, because if I didn't run out of air first, this guy was going to rip my throat apart and I didn't even know which option was the better one.

A sharp pain consumed me when his teeth penetrated my skin and I screamed out, a horrible scream that didn't sound at all like my own. My vision darkened but before I was able to black out completely, I felt my throat being released and my knees hitting the ground with a hard thud, scraping the ground harshly.

My lungs yelled out for air and I frantically gave it to them, gasping it in desperately. My neck was on fire on the inside _and _out and I had never been in so much pain in all my life.

I wanted my inhaler but I needed to see what had made the man let go, just in case he wasn't done with me yet, I looked up from the floor as the ringing in my ears died down only to be replaced by an agonized wailing sound. My eyes widened as I took in what was happening, still coughing in mouthfuls of air greedily.

A figure was on fire, actual fire, which must have been the cause of the new sound. I watched on horrified as I realised that the burning person was the man who had just tried to kill me.

"I said" Emmett hissed, standing a few metres behind the fiery mass with a can of hair spray in one hand and a lighter in the other. "Let go of her." He then turned to the woman holding Edward, who I noticed looked totally shocked and fierce as she watched her friend finally fall to the floor, unmoving. Emmett pointed the can at her. "I don't know how the hell he went up in flames like that, but I swear to God if you don't let my brother go, you'll find out exactly how." He threatened although his hands were shaking ever so slightly.

I was sure that another one of them was going to appear behind him at any moment but all the others were either too preoccupied with killing their own targets, or were staring at the fire consumed body with concern.

That was it. The women pushed Edward away from her with an animalistic snarl. "I'll kill you!" she aimed at Emmett.

Edward stumbled his way over to me and dropped to my level on the floor. "Alice are-are you ok?" He sniffed. I was still spluttering too uncontrollably to answer him so instead, I looked up to try and reassure him with my eyes that I was going to be ok.

"Oh my God, Alice your neck!" Edward exclaimed horrified, ripping his jacket off and pressing it against my bleeding throat.

I tried to say something but I couldn't even bare a whisper.

"Don't – don't try to talk." Edward stuttered "you're going to be fine I promise."

"Bring it on you bitch." Emmett said in reply to the death threat he received. "Let's see how long it takes you to end up like your little boyfriend." He said backing up to where Edward and I were slumped on the ground.

"Let's go" He told us never taking his eyes of the woman and some of the others who had been drawn in by the scene.

"But Alice…her neck" Edward tried to explain.

"Let's. Go" Emmett repeated more sternly, no room left for argument. Edward helped me up and slung an arm around my shoulders in an effort to keep me upright as my head lolled to the side.

"What makes you think you'll get very far?" The woman started to taunt, moving a little forward with a few others, only being slightly cautious of Emmett and his can. From what I had seen they were extremely fast, she could just grab it from him and he wouldn't even know the difference until it was too late.

My eyes were drooping but I knew that I couldn't sleep. I couldn't leave my brothers to handle this on their own no matter how useless I was at the moment.

As my eyes fell, I noticed a puddle of petrol pooling on the floor from a car that had most probably been destroyed while its inhabitants were ruthlessly murdered, and coughed loudly, catching Emmett's eye. My eyes darted to the liquid trailing on the floor making Emmett's follow and suddenly a light turned on in his eyes, realising my unspoken suggestion.

"Ah well, Emmett said backing us up even more to bring them closer to the trap that he was mentally setting. "Maybe…this!" He threw the lighter at the fluid and it burst up in an array of flames. It worked better than expected because the car set alight too, and since all the cars were packed so tightly together, it spread kind of like a barrier of fire keeping them from us.

There was no time to lose and luckily we had been driving on the end lane, right by a forest.

Emmett chucked the can of hairspray at Edward, who caught it with his free hand, and took another lighter from his pocket giving that to Edward too. "Use if you have to." He said.

Edward nodded before passing me over to Emmett, who took me gently in his arms. "Come on" He said softly, his voice was full of worry and concern but I knew we couldn't hang around as they started running through the trees, away from the main road, away from our parents.

When we made it too the next road it too had been ransacked of life, a massacre of a scene. No better than the one we had just come from, although there was no one here at all now, just empty bodies. "What the fuck is this?" Emmett said, voice wavering.

We finally made it to a town that we recognised, it wasn't ours but it was nearby. Edward banged on doors, calling for help, but no one answered and when one just swung open, we entered the house and found it empty. I might have disapproved of entering a house uninvited but something told me the owners weren't coming back. It looked like the scene of a struggle, something you might have seen on CSI.

The guys made sure to lock all of the doors before Emmett lay me down on the sofa, while Edward found a bathroom, bringing back every first aid essential it contained.

"What the hell did he do to her?" Emmett whispered to Edward angrily.

"I think he _bit_ her." Edward replied with equal venom.

"What kind of person would do that?" Emmett asked disgustedly.

"Vampires" I whispered to their surprise just before losing consciousness.

X

I woke up to find a TV playing quietly in the front of the room. It looked and sounded like it was playing the news.

-Attacks worldwide – massacres – killings – murders

"It's happening everywhere!" Edward exclaimed. I could see him sitting on the arm of the sofa out of the corner of my eye. He was facing Emmett who was sitting in an arm chair watching the screen with an intense expression.

"This is ridiculous" Emmett replied. "Why aren't the government doing anything?"

"You heard what they said. The president is missing, in fact all of the world's leaders have gone and you saw them, what can _anyone_ do to these…._things_." Edward responded. "They've tried gunning them down, bombing them, they're not dying. I don't even think that the fire killed that one on the road completely because I heard him moaning still" Edward stated.

"Hm" Emmett pondered.

"How the hell did you know that fire would hurt do that to him anyway?" Edward mumbled.

"Didn't" Emmett shrugged, "when I was thrown against that car I noticed the hairspray sitting on the dashboard. I was willing to do anything to make that asshole let go of Ali. So I figured I could burn him off her, I didn't expect him to go up the way he did." He explained.

"What about the lighters." Edward asked.

"Huh." Emmett answered.

"Where'd you get the lighters from?" Edward pressed knowing full well that Emmett had heard him the first time.

"Oh…." Emmett grinned sheepishly. "I kind of took up smoking while I was away."

I fought a snicker but as usual Edward was there to do it for me. "Mom and dad are going to kill-" He went silent, both of them did and this time I couldn't fight the sob that came out of my mouth.

"Alice?" Edward jumped up from the sofa while Emmett pulled himself off the armchair.

"How you doing kiddo?" Emmett said crouching down.

I decided to test my voice; they had placed a bandage over my throat now and it felt a little better.

"sore" I croaked out.

"I'll bet" Edward commented handing me a glass of water that had been sitting on the table. I took it and tried a sip, wincing as it ran down my throat.

"It'll do it good." Edward promised.

"How's your head?" Emmett asked, reminding me that I had hit it.

"Uh, pounding" I whispered.

"Alice I'm so sorry I couldn't help you sooner, I don't… Mom and dad… I just froze and… I'm so sorry." He stated, voice cracking.

"It's ok." I replied. "Not your fault." I said taking his hand and giving it a squeeze.

"Why are we still here?" I asked, trying to put the images of our parent's demise out of my mind.

"Alice something crazy is happening. These people, these things are everywhere." Edward explained pointing to the TV. "People are in hiding. No one knows what is going on; even the reporters, and we can't call for help because the phones are going straight to the dial tone."

"Vampires" I said repeating the word from earlier.

Edward and Emmett looked at each other, eyes full of anxiety.

"Alice that's not possible." Edward said softly.

"I know but-"

"Edwards right Alice" Emmett interrupted me. "I know he bit you and everything." He shuddered. "But you took a pretty big bang to the head." He tried to explain.

"Em, didn't you see…how fast they…moved." I wheezed. Emmett quickly handed me my pump, which he must have grabbed from the car once I had been dragged out, and I puffed much needed air into my lungs. "Their strength…" I continued once I was done. "It bit me and was drinking my blood. What more evidence do you want?" I asked. I knew it seemed far-fetched, vampires were the stuff of superstition and stories, it was downright mental saying they existed.

"They're saying it's some sort of drug." He mumbled.

"Oh really…and a drug would make them sparkle? A drug would make them rip dad from the car and snap mom's neck?" I said, finally acknowledging our parents with a crack in my voice that wasn't due to its tenderness.

Only then did it finally hit us, as Edwards's eyes glazed over and Emmett's Adams apple bobbed.

Our parents were dead.

The three of us stayed there in a state of shock and grief for I don't know how long, sniffing, crying, _mourning_… trapped with heartache.

"What are we gonna do Em?" Edward whispered eventually, his voice was all stuffy with lingering tears.

Emmett was silent for a moment longer. I felt terrible for him, he was the oldest and therefore he had a legal responsibility to take care of us now that we were….were orphans. He didn't deserve that, he had his whole career ahead of him.

_Little did I know, career opportunities had gone out the window completely_

"Well…" he said. "We're going to stay here until we know what's going on and until I know it's safe. It looks like they've already wiped out this town so I doubt they will be back anytime soon." He stated.

Edward and I nodded simultaneously in response; there wasn't anything else we could do.

I decided to sit up, resulting in a worsened throbbing head and aching neck.

The TV that was playing in the background suddenly turned off with a start, making us all jump and look over.

"O…K then." Edward and I murmured turning to look at one another. However, as soon as it had turned off the TV had turned itself on again and I gasped at who was on the screen. Instead of the news anchor we had been listening to before, the figure on the screen had pale skin and red eyes, he was one of _them._

"Hello." He said in a strong voice. "This is a final broadcast for all humans, who are currently in hiding. You no longer rule over this planet, it has been taken from you by my kind, the_ superior_ kind. If you surrender to us you will be spared, the massacres will end and the extensive killings will come to a halt, because despite you insignificance, we still need you. If you fail to comply with our leadership, we will hunt you down and course you unimaginable torment, and believe me we will find you in the end no matter what you try and then crush your idea of freedom. You are our cattle, our property now. You have no rights, no homes, nothing. Nothing belongs to you because you yourself are belongings, as in belonging to us. Fill the streets, give up, and you will _live_, live to serve us, but a life all the same. We are _vampires_ and we have taken our rightful place."

The screen died. Emmett grabbed the remote-control trying to turn it back but when it stayed blank he threw it against the wall and ran a hand through his hair.

"This is not happening." He shook his head. "This is some sort of joke. Any minute now we'll be live on Punk'ed…" he rambled.

"You were right Alice" Edward murmured. "They- they _are_ vampires." He breathed.

There were no '_I told you so's' _because until now even I hadn't _fully _believed it.

"What do we do? Surrender?" I asked.

"No fucking way!" Emmett hissed.

"But you heard-" Edward started.

"I don't care. I'm nobody's bitch. We know fire immobilises them. We're _not_ surrendering."

Normal time 

And that was how it started. It took us a while to figure out that these vampires weren't like the ones we had heard about in the stories or watched in films. They didn't burn in the sun, garlic, stakes, crosses and holy water didn't work on them, and they didn't sleep at all, not even in coffins. Fire didn't kill them but it sure as hell hurt them and stopped them in their tracks. So at least we had that on our side, however with this realisation, they had made it increasingly harder for people to get a hold of anything such as matches, lighters, petrol and gasoline.

Emmett and Edward watched me like a hawk over the first few days of the takeover, afraid I'd turn into one of them, but eventually when nothing was happening they let up and I got better.

Most of the humans surrendered, now working for the vampires, not that they needed anything to be done for them, they could do anything we humans could do in a fraction of the time but I suppose they enjoyed our slave labour.

I realised that they couldn't keep their bloodshed up on the first day because they still needed us for food and if they killed us all then there'd be nothing left for them, no source of food, so although some did kill their victims, more fed off their servants, keeping them alive until the poor human could handle it no longer, and there were even some facilities where they were breeding humans like animals. It was completely disgusting.

Regarding me and my brothers, we had changed. We weren't the same people we once were, and not only because Edward and I were 18 now and Emmett 21, but because the things we had seen over the past two years, had taken its toll.

There were four groups of people now.

_The Vampires_, who ruled with an iron fist, quite literally, they were the majority.

_The Submitants_, who had surrendered to our new leaders, they took up most of the human population. The remaining humans usually called them the traitors although we really couldn't blame them; they probably had families to protect.

There were _the runners_, who had no intentions of being ruled by the vampires so did everything they could not to get caught, there were quite a few of them but if they _did_ get caught, they'd be taken to warehouses were they were sold as slaves to the highest bidders. If they got sold they were treated worse than the _submitants_ ever were, this was because they had not surrendered themselves willingly.

And finally the _rebels_, who were the humans trying to fight back. If you were found to be a part of the rebel movement, big screens which had been put up all over the world, would turn on and everyone (especially the humans) would have to watch live as the person in question was executed. The vampires didn't like technology but they would always make an exception for this which was the only reason for the screens.

Predominantly Emmett, Edward and I were _runners_, doing our best not to get caught, sometimes we would meet up with other runners until we had to make a quick getaway, but mostly it was just the three of us. I knew that Emmett wanted to become one of the rebels but I think he held back for the sake of Edward and me.

I traced the cold to the touch, but constantly burning scar on my neck one more time thinking of my parents. The only thing I had left of them now was memories. I would often find myself picturing the trip we had taken as a family to Florida. I remembered sitting on a sandy white beach, feeling so freaking happy.

I was so scared of forgetting them forgetting how they looked like, Lucy and Matthew McCarthy.

Emmett said all we had to do was remember that we had each taken specific features from both of our parents to stop us from forgetting them, For example Edward had our moms bronze, coppery coloured hair, while me and Emmett shared our dads midnight locks, I was small in features and in height exactly like my mom while Emmett and Edward were tall and muscled like my dad although Edward had taken a leaner approach. We all shared our moms, piercing grey green eyes, in contrast to our dads shining brown ones.

I sighed. I missed them, but no matter how much I wanted them here, I was glad they weren't. Glad they weren't living under this controversy, this dictatorship, this vampire apocalypse.

**What do ya think? **


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 **

Alice's POV 

I chucked the tennis ball back over to Edward for what seemed like the millionth time that day; he caught it instantly, bouncing it back to me.

We were both sitting against walls at opposite sides of the factory room just chucking the old ball back and forth, bored out of our minds.

If you weren't too busy trying to survive, you were bored stiff.

_Vampires..._ not only did they take our freedom from us but they took our ability to have anything to do too.

It was an unusually sunny day outside. I knew because fingers of light broke through cracks in the worn roof of the old factory and every time the ball bounced off the floor, billows of the dust that caked the surface, would jump up to dance and swirl in the shards of soft light.

I was watching the dust start to float to the floor again when the walky-talky we had, suddenly crackled to life in the corner.

By rights walky-talky's and other forms of technology, communication and otherwise, were banned from humans, but we found it once in an abandoned cop car and had had it ever since. We soon discovered when we managed to get a signal on the damn thing and when Emmett had played around with the key pad, that the rebels were using them to transmit information. Emmett spent hours at a time listening to it because he liked to know what was happening with them, hoping that there would soon be some kind of breakthrough. I didn't think so though, he'd already been hoping the same thing for the past two years now with no results.

'…_Colossal fight… happening on the streets of Newyork …believed to be between the… Volturi and the unidentified vampire alliance, gonna … see if we can't blow these sons of bitches to high hell… while they're too busy with each other… Stay tuned.' _The gruff voice of the rebel leader erupted out of the device distortedly.

I looked back to Edward.

"Looks like the Volturi are fighting for more territory." I commented with another bounce of the ball.

"Yeah but with the way this unknown vampire_ alliance _is going, the Volturi are losing their land and fast by the sounds of it" Edward bounced back.

You see, it wasn't only the vampires and the rebels at war, they were also fighting each other, for territory, and until a couple of months ago a group called the Volturi were clearly gaining the most of it, but this other group had recently come into the game and they seemed to be taking it all back. No one knew who this unnamed group was but apparently they were as vicious as they come, even _worse_ than the Volturi, which was a statement in itself.

I shivered at the thought of ever running into them.

"Alice!" Edward whined and I realised that I hadn't chucked the ball back to him yet.

I grinned, tossing it over. "We need to find a new hobby." I commented.

"Yeah like collecting coins." Edward laughed making me screw my face up.

"You're such an old man." I told him.

"Newsflash sis, we're twins if I'm old what does that make you? And anyway I was being sarcastic." He returned.

"I'm younger then you." I mumbled lamely.

"By 5 minutes Ali." Edward teased.

"But those 5 minutes are_ soooo_ relevant when _you _need to get one over on _me_." I sulked, just as there was a distinctive knock we recognised as not being a threat, and a creek, caused by someone opening the entrance to the hideout.

Emmett then came jogging into the space, carrying a bag.

"What's up?" He asked.

"Alice is in a bad mood coz she's the baby of the family!"

"Edward wants to start collecting coins!"

And then-

"I told you I was being Sarcastic!"

"How am I in a bad mood for being younger? That was _my_ point in the first place."

The words were spoken at the same time but Emmett heard them for what they were instantly, of course would. It came with his job of continually having to keep the peace between us.

"Alright, first of all Edward, collecting coins? seriously? Not only is that extremely lame but what do you think this is 2010? In case you haven't noticed we're in the middle of a dictatorship." Emmett exclaimed, sending me a wink.

I snickered.

"I was being Sar-cas-tic!" Edward hissed. Emmett held up a finger, telling him to wait.

"And second of all, be nice to our sister, she's younger than us." He grinned, dodging the tennis ball I lobbed at his head.

_So much for keeping the peace_

"You are so annoying" I spat glaring at him.

"Au contraire" He said in a ghastly French accent, bowing in my direction. He then opened his bag, bringing out a box and walking over to me, holding out his hand.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a new Ventolin asthma pump laying in it. I liked those the best as they had a does counter on the front showing you how many sprays you had left of the reliever medicine inside. It started at 200 and ended at 000, so when we saw it was starting to run low Emmett would go and _acquire _a refill.

I reached for it eagerly, only to swipe air when my brother moved his hand and the box away.

"These are not easy to get Alice. I don't want to find that you've lost it again, at least for another few months, or I'll freaking glue it to your hand. Capisce?" he said, and although he was only joking I knew there was a real seriousness there, they _were _hard to get a hold off, all medicine was because the pharmacies were strictly censored. I knew that there was a black market under the radar for humans but I still didn't know how Emmett managed to get me new inhalers or the refill canisters of salbutamol which is what I had to breathe in.

I nodded solemnly and he handed it over.

He then took out a pack of playing cards from the bag and chucked them towards Edward who caught them reflexively.

"Yeeess! Thanks bro!" Edward whooped.

"I also got some water, bread and cheese, all Kate could get me." He commented, sticking the bag on the floor.

Katarina Denali was a Submitant working for a vampire named Garrett. From what I had heard Garrett wasn't half bad, well for a bloodsucker anyway and Katarina, or Kate as she liked to be called, was Emmett's contact, she helped us out from time to time with food and good water.

Because the vampires needed our kind for food, they had to make sure that their servants were also well fed, so therefore they had to keep trading human nourishment and medication, which meant they had to keep the grocery and pharmacy stores open too even though_ I_ had also heard they despised _our_ diet.

Only Chosen Submitants were allowed to shop for food and medication and Kate was one of the few. She couldn't do much for us because her_… owner _would realise that the money she returned and the items she brought back didn't add up, and although he was one of the more light hearted few, she would no doubt be fiercely punished if he ever found out she was aiding and abetting runners, but she did enough to see us through another day.

"Cool!" I exclaimed. "I love cheese."

"You love anything Alice. For a small girl you could eat a horse given the chance." Emmett said playfully.

"I'll take that as a complement." I grinned.

After we ate something, we decided to play a game of cards. The first game we played was bullshit, the game where you had to guess whether your opponents were lying or telling the truth about what cards they had. Emmett was out instantly because we all knew he did this funny little twitch with his eyebrows whenever he lied. It was much harder to play against Edward, he seemed to know what I was thinking every time a thought came into my head, however, I knew what he was planning to do before he even knew it properly himself I think. We called it a twin thing, Emmett just called it creepy.

After Edward (regrettably) won that game we played a few more like go fish and solitaire before there was an urgent knocking against the side of the building we were in. Emmett jumped up immediately, telling us silently not make a sound. The knocking continued and we suddenly realised that it was in the form of a signal, a signal between runners, which meant another runner was here. Emmett seemed to relax a little at this and pushed aside some scrap pieces of congregated metal to revel Mike Newton's permanently worried face. Emmett pulled him inside by his jumper, poking his head through the makeshift doorway to check that no one had seen.

"Hey" Mike said nodding in the direction of Edward and me.

"Hey" We replied together, nodding back.

"Hey dude what's up?" Emmett said, pushing the mental back into place and turning to look at the shorter boy.

"Emmett" Mike replied. "Not much." He finished nervously.

"Then what are you doing here bro? Where's Jess?" Emmett frowned.

Jess was Mike's girlfriend; they were part of the group we had split up from a couple of days ago before coming here.

"She, she's good. She's at our other hideout." Mike said, touching a spot on the back of his neck. "I just came to tell you that um, that the others are ok, they weren't pursued." He replied.

"_Good_." Emmett acknowledged, leaving us lingering in an awkward silence for a second.

"I'm not trying to sound rude mate but why'd you come all the way to tell us that." You know the motto" Emmett said crossing his arms over his chest sternly.

"Yeah well, I – I was also looking for some refuge you know, for the night." Mike muttered.

"Yeah" Emmett dragged, still looking uncertain.

Looking over towards Mike, I noticed that he didn't look right, pale face, sweaty palms; he wasn't even standing still, just fidgeting on the spot and his clear anxiousness was making me anxious.

This wasn't right. Something was wrong and terribly so, I had a nagging feeling and usually my feelings didn't lie.

I got up and so did Edward.

Why was Mike here without Jess or anyone else for that matter? Runners didn't normally travel alone. We all usually had some sort of backup.

"Mike" I whispered. "_Where's _Jess?" I spoke, heart fluttering inside my chest ever so slightly in anticipation.

"I told you!" He snapped, glaring at me "At our other hideout."

"Yo dude!" Emmett warned. "She just asked. No need to snap at her." He glared at him, defending me.

"He's lying." Edward stated.

"What?" Emmett and Mike breathed while I nodded my head, agreeing with my twin.

"I'm not!" Mike insisted.

"You are! Look at him Emmett." I exclaimed. "Something's up. Where. Is. Jess?" I repeated.

"Guys I think you're jumping to conclu-" Emmett started, walking over to me and Edward, but he was cut off unexpectedly.

"I'm so sorry." Mike whispered.

Emmett spun around. "Say _what_?" He asked taken aback.

"She was t-taken by _them_…" Mike said distressfully.

It took a moment for Emmett to absorb this information but when he did, the air seemed to shift and not in a good way.

"What did you do?" Emmett said calmly.

Mike didn't answer. He shuffled on his two feet avoiding eye contact.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?" Emmett bellowed.

"I'm sorry," Mike whimpered, backing away from Emmett. "I'm so _so_ sorry."

"Mike if you don't tell me what you did – so help me I will…" Emmett threated leaving the actual threat hanging, which made it all the _more _threatening.

"They said they were gonna kill her!" He defended and finally, I understood _completely_ what he had done, a revelation that made me absolutely terrified.

I ran over to the walky-talky, hastily kicking it under a pile of debris.

Edward watched, looking as sick as I felt as I quickly un-packaged my pump from its box, took a puff and placed it securely in my back pocket.

"They said" Mike repeated. "They said that if I didn't round as many of us up as possible, they'd _kill_ her."

And there it was.

"You bastard" Emmett hissed. "You fucking traitor!" He screamed charging towards him.

He jumped on Mike, the two of them landing on the floor, and started punching him so hard in the face, he would have killed him if I hadn't intervened.

"Emmett we have to go!" I screamed as Mike murmured apologies through a bloody mouth on the ground. "We have to go."

"I'll kill you!" Emmett promised spitting down at Mike in disgust.

He grabbed my arm and yanked me towards the door, before kicking the congregated metal out of the way. The three of us stepped outside, only to be greeted by an ambush.

We didn't even stand a chance...

**Got a few followers/favourites and a review (deltagirl74) . Thanks :) **

**Expect Chapter 4 the same time tomorrow but review _please..._**


	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks so much for my reviews/favourites/follows**

Chapter 4 

Alice's POV

"GET OFF OF THEM NOW" Emmett bellowed, looking in my direction whilst struggling in the hold of his own captives. He had three of them, one on each arm, and one holding onto the scruff of his shirt while a few others were lingering around him as well. He might not have had their strength but he wasn't a weakling that was for sure, as he at least offered them up a challenge.

A vampire had wormed his arm around my waist crushing me to his chest as I twisted and squirmed in his grasp trying to get away from him but with no use. My small structure meant there wasn't really a lot I could do.

"If you don't _stop_" the man hissed in my ear. "I'll break your legs." He threatened.

"Screw you." I spat.

Edward wasn't doing a lot better either, he had two of them on him, one pinning his hands behind his back and another dodging the mid-air kicks my brother was aiming at its head.

We were still outside our hideout, with about half a dozen vampires, who had all been waiting to grab us as soon as we left the shelter.

We didn't even have a chance to_ try_ and make a run for it.

I noticed something out of the corner of my eye and turned my head to see Mike exiting the hideout. His bruised (from Emmett's attack) blue eyes met with my green ones for a second before they fell to the floor cowardly.

"How could you?" I asked with a voice full of venom, shoving at the vampire with my shoulder which only made the painful grip around my waist tighten, but I didn't care, I was too angry and too betrayed by someone I thought I could trust, to feel anything but unbridled hatred.

"I'm _sorry_." He murmured shakily, repeating the same words from earlier to make me feel like I was talking to a freaking parrot, I didn't want his apologies; I wanted an explanation and the one he gave while inside just wasn't good enough.

"They have Jess. If I don't do what they ask by turning as much of us in as I can, they'll _kill_ her. You have to understand that, you would do the same if it were one of your brothers; you all would!" He exclaimed desperately.

I shook my head solemnly, suddenly giving up with being angry at him. The only remaining emotion I had left now was hurt, hurt at what he had done and hurt for what I was about to say to him.

"No" I whispered. "I wouldn't have done the same thing, because I'd already know that if they told me they had one of my brothers and that I could have them back as soon as I did what they asked, they'd already be dead and there would be nothing left I could do." I murmured. "They _don't _make _negotiations _Mike…"

Mike's head snapped up, hearing in my tone what I was implying. "No" He breathed.

"Jess is dead Mike" I said, voice wavering.

"No" he swallowed again.

"She was just a pawn to get you to do what they wanted and you played right into their hands. They sacrificed one to get the majority, you should have realised that Mike, it's happened to countless of runners before." I shook my head sadly, trying to ignore the pinch around my stomach.

Realization touched his eyes with a glassy sheen of understanding.

"She's dead?"

I couldn't bring myself to nod the final seal of confirmation, but the look my face said it for me as Mike dropped to his knees, as if the strings that had made him their puppet, had been cut away with a pair of sharp merciless scissors. "What have I done?" he said into his hands.

"Aw" the vampire behind me cooed. "You ruined the surprise." He said with fake disappointment. "On the contrary we don't need that snivelling bag of old bones anymore either. All it's been since we've had him is _'don't hurt whatshername this, and don't hurt whatshername that'_. It's been…._hell_" He laughed as another vampire appeared behind Mike's sobbing form.

"Mike!" I screamed but he didn't bother looking up.

"I'm so sorry" he said tiredly, for the final time, and before I knew it, gleaming teeth were lunging, and there was a spray of red as his throat was ripped out. It was such a violent way to die that the splatter of blood released from our once ally reached diameters, coating everyone within its distance.

I was soaked

I let out a shaky breath, trying to ignore the trickle of gore, running down my cheek. I stayed completely still for the first time since being grabbed by the brute that had me, not wanting to feel the thick liquid against my clothes anymore then I already could.

The man took his free arm (the one that wasn't squeezing my waist to him) and ran hand ominously along the side of my face, stopping the dribbles of Mikes blood in their tracks. He then brought his fingers to his lips, popping them into his mouth.

I winced with disgust.

"Yum" He empathised in a taunting tone once he was done committing the horrible gesture. "Now come on!" he ordered and continued dragging me backwards. Even though I was physically moving, my eyes couldn't shift away from Mike's stone cold dead ones as he lay in a pool of his own blood on the floor, they stared back at me sorrowfully, eventually causing me to blink away from the horrendous sight.

_He should have known better._ I tried to reason with myself. I thought back to what he had said about me doing the same thing in his position and my answer. Would I really be that heartless to not agree to their terms if they told me they had one or both of the only two people I truly loved on this earth?

Had living in this society made me as cold as the people ruling it?

Emmett had made sure that we knew that if one of us was captured for a ransom then that person wouldn't stand a chance, that they were just used for the purpose of capturing more to sell.

Maybe there would be a little part of me that wanted to believe that there would still be a chance had I'd been in Mikes position but an even bigger part would have thrived for revenge having been aware that I had lost a portion of my family, and that part should have been what Mike had followed because not only was he down now but he had brought us down with him, he'd taken the cowards way out and left us to deal with the consequences.

I could hear some kind of transportation pull up at the side walk as I tuned back into my surroundings. Emmett and Edward were being dragged in the same direction that I was, towards the revving engine of the vehicle, both putting up one hell of a fight. I didn't know if they had been able to witness what happened to Mike, but I doubted that Emmett especially, really cared at that moment.

I turned my head slightly to look over my shoulder, poking it around the vampire's chest to notice a black van.

Another vampire appeared, coming round the side of the van, probably from the driver's seat to open the doubled back doors.

Hearing a sickening crunch and a sudden yell of pain, I whipped my head back in Emmett's direction to see his head bent down to try and hide his agony as one of his snatchers clutched his right wrist, which looked distorted as it faced at an odd angle.

"Em" I whispered in distress. He looked like he was in a world of hurt and it pained me to see him in that state.

"I told you not to harm them!" Another Vampire screeched. He must have been the leader of their group of trackers as we called them, the vampires that hunted the stowaway humans. "Especially not that one" He pointed to Emmett. "He'll fetch a good price at the auction by the looks of him."

Hearing him say the word _auction_ brought on another bout of struggling on my part. This was our worst fear coming true.

"Sorry" the vampire holding Emmett's wrist shrugged. "But he's being a pain in the neck." He said with grin.

On my other side I could see Edward still attempting to kick one of his captors in the face and finally, even though it didn't make much of a difference, the steel toe of his boot connected with the vampires jaw.

"That's it" The vampire roared, hitting Edward's leg to the side. "forget not hurting them, things would be so much easier if we just did…this..." He said punching my twin in the face. The blow knocked Edward unconscious immediately.

"Stop!" Emmett and I screamed, as they hauled Edward effortlessly into the van.

"You're right. That did seem a lot easier." The woman who had a grip on Emmett's shirt said, balling her fist tightly and smacking it into the back of Emmett's head, the force must have had the equivalency of a brick because Emmett slumped to the floor too, just as I reached the doors of the van, clawing at my assailant's arm.

"Your turn love." The vamp said, yanking my head back vigorously and whacking it into the corner of one of the vans back doors.

Everything turned dark.

**Thoughts? **

******Deltagirl74, in answer to your question, Jasper is not a runner/rebel or anything like that and he isn't part the/a group of vampires who are actually trying to _catch_ the humans either... Lets just say he has another agenda and there is a lot more to him than meets the eye when he _is_ finally introduced properly. It wont be as straightforward as it seems at first. Hope that helps. **

**Emmie x**


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks again people**

**Just so we're clear vampires (in this story anyway) can't smell blood in a tempting way until it is actually realised from a human, like from a cut or something like that**, **otherwise I don't think they'd be very stable leaders since they'd have no restraint. **

**Chapter 5 **

Alice POV 

"Ouch" I moaned.

My head was throbbing intensely. I tried to open my eyes but they felt too heavy, as if a pair of paper weights had been placed on top of each one.

I was lying on my side, on top of a bed of something scratchy, on a bed of straw I guessed, as I could still feel the cold, hard floor beneath me.

Where was I?

"Alice" someone whispered. "You awake?"

"Hmmmm" I hummed in response, not really sure what was going on. The last thing I remembered was playing catch with Edward and then…_oh my God, _Mike had shown up and set us up. We had been grabbed, he had been killed and now…_now_…

Forgetting the heaviness I forced my eyes open.

…and now I was in what looked like a jail cell, but less homey. In fact, it looked like a jail cell someone might find in the early 18th century, all metal bars and straw beds.

"Oh… _come on_." I whispered agitatedly.

"Tell us about it." I looked up to find Edward sitting against one of the walls by me, Emmett right beside him.

I sat up, bringing my hand to the side of my forehead where it came across a tender bump.

"Ouch" I repeated, pulling my hand away from the soreness. I then scanned over my two brothers'; checking to see what damage had been done to them. "Are you guys ok?" I asked shakily. "How's your wrist Emmett?" I questioned, remembering the crunch, his yell of agony, and the distorted position his wrist had taken amidst the struggle.

"Hurts like a bitch." he muttered. "But we managed to set it back into place and that virtually killed, so the worse is over." He finished, but then a second thought occurred to him. "Well injury-wise anyway" He mumbled.

I turned to Edward and noticed that his jaw was swollen on the left hand side where the vampire had struck him, and he had a colourful black eye to match. I hissed inwardly, feeling his pain just by looking at him.

"Yeah, yeah Emmett already told me I look like crap." He murmured.

"He can say that again" I nodded.

"You can talk." Edward barked. "You nearly gave us a heart attack when we woke up to find you all covered in blood.

"It was only when we tried looking for a wound that we realised it wasn't yours." Emmett added. "What happened?"

"Mike" I answered. "They killed him."

"Good" Emmett and Edward both said at the same time.

"No not good" I shook my head. "He didn't deserve that no matter what he did; he was just hanging on to the hope that Jess was still alive. _Dumb_…" I admitted. "-but sad."

"Don't make excuses for him Ali" Emmett snarled. "I'd rather have died then did what he did, it was obvious Jess was gone from the get go and now he's tarnished both their memories with his actions. If it had been one of you two, I would have got vengeance, not backstabbed." He said darkly.

"I know" I nodded meekly because he was right. Like I had said, _They didn't make negotiations, _everyone knew that.

"We're at a warehouse aren't we?" I mumbled.

"Yeah" Edward sighed.

"What is gonna happen to us now?" I asked unsteadily, I was fighting back tears. This couldn't be happening to us. We'd survived a whole two years, running from continent to continent and now, when we were back in Washington, our _home_; we'd been caught due to someone else's utter _stupidity_.

Emmett stood up and held his un-injured hand out to me. I took it and he pulled me up into a bear like hug. "Everything's gonna be ok Alice." He whispered into my ear. "I promise you _both_. Everything will turn out A-Okay." Edward stood up too and Emmett clapped him on the back. "We're going to be just fine."

X

"Get up you Lazy fools!"

My eyes flew open and I sat up. I noticed Emmett and Edward doing the same and realised that we must have fallen asleep.

Something was rattling and I turned towards the bars, seeing a vampire, who looked like he had been turned during his mid-thirties, using a key to open the lock. I jumped up only to be grabbed by Emmett, who pushed both me and Edward behind him, to our annoyance.

"What do you want?" Emmett hissed.

The vampire laughed, refusing to answer but deep down I knew where he were going to take us. The first vampire was joined by a few others and they forced us down the corridor of cells towards a door. Some other humans from the neighbouring cells were being taken in the same direction.

A vampire opened the door to revel a magnificent hall. My heart beat so fast that it started to become painful. I managed to feel the back pocket of my jeans and fought a sigh of relief as I felt my inhaler there. Well at least I still had that.

In the hall there was a stage. Behind the stage there was a rope, cordoning of dozens of worn out looking humans. In front of the stage there were hundreds of glamorous looking vampires chatting almost silently amongst themselves. My brothers and I were pushed towards the roped off area that was being guarded by a couple fierce looking vampire's.

We were at an auction.

"Stay together." Emmett hissed but the sound was drowned out.

"SOLD to Lady Kent!" boomed an echoing voice and I looked up to see a male vampire with a hammer smacking it down on a block of wood as a burley looking human man was dragged off of the stage and towards an exit were he would no doubt be taken to his new home with _"lady Kent"._

"Alice!" I turned just as Angela smacked into me.

"Angela!" I gasped.

"Oh Alice…" she sighed sadly, wrapping me up in a hug. "Not you too! Mike?"

"Mike" I confirmed.

"Son of a-"

"They killed him." I interrupted. "Who else is here?" I asked as Emmett and Edward greeted our runner friend.

"I saw Tyler and Lauren briefly, but he's been sold to someone called Tanya I think and she was sold to a vamp named Cam. I'm not too sure about the others" She murmured.

"Damn." I shook my head.

We ended up watching people being yanked out of the Penn, as I called it, and taken to the stage where they were sold to the highest bidder. Eventually Angela was taken up and sold to a vampire named Benjamin.

And then someone grabbed Emmett, and only then did I realise, we were going to be split.

"No" I cried, grabbing on to Emmett too, only to be swatted away like an annoying fly buzzing around someone on a hot day.

Edward took a different approach. "Please" He begged the vampire's, "we're related. Please, you _have_ to sell us together."

"Move" A vampire warned him.

My stomach was wrapping itself into knots but Emmett had suddenly become very calm.

"Fine" he said lowly "if you can't sell all of us together, then at least sell those two together." He said nodding towards my twin and me.

"What no!" Edward and I yelled.

"We have to stay together Emmett!" Edward demanded with me nodding hectically at his side, but Emmett ignored us. His attention was focused on the vampire, who I guessed was the owner of this little slave drive.

"And why would I do that?" The vampire chuckled.

"Because…" Emmett hissed. "I'll most probably get you a good price and also if I find out that they aren't together, and believe me _I will_, I'll refuse to do a thing, I don't care what they do to me, I won't do a thing." He repeated. "And what will that do to your reputation as a human distributer then?" He asked with an arrogant smile.

The vampire growled.

"That's what I thought" Emmett smirked.

"Emmett" I whispered, voice trembling, making him finally look at us.

"Remember what I said." He said, "We'll be fine. I'll come for you both I promise. Stay together and be brave like I _know_ you can."

I had changed my mind. If being a damsel in distress meant that Emmett wouldn't leave us, I would never question him and his overprotectiveness ever again.

_I'm not brave. _I wanted to tell him. _I'm not brave, please don't leave us._

"No!" Edward demanded. "Don't do this Em-"

"Please" I finished desperately, _'Stay Together' was_ the last thing our mom had said to Emmett, I didn't want it to be the last thing he said to us too.

"Stay together." He repeated as he was dragged towards the stage. "And Alice make sure you keep that _thing_ of yours safe." He instructed for the last time. I nodded helplessly, even though that would be no use when the counter on what he was talking about ran out. I had no idea what I was going to do after that.

Edward and I tried to follow but were stopped roughly by the vampires guarding the edge of the Penn.

"And now we have a very strong looking male up for grabs ladies and gentlemen" The speaker announced as Emmett was pulled onto the stage. "This one will be very handy for all the hard work that you are too worthy and privileged to waste your time with." He continued, making the bile rise to my throat, they were selling him like a prized stallion.

"We will start the bidding at $100,000 since this is a very capable looking specimen. Do I hear $100,000?"

Instantly offers started flying around the room as Emmett glowered into the crowd defiantly and the auctioneer started his chant.

"$100,000, do I hear $100,000, now $200,000, who will give me $200.000, $200.000, now $300,000, who will give me $300,000, $300,000, now $400,000-"

It went on like that until…

"SOLD to Sir King for £100,000,000" Then there was the final bang of the hammer and Emmett was being taken from the stage towards the exit. I buried my face into Edward's shoulder as he draped his arm around mine.

"It's going to be ok Ali" He tried to copy Emmett's words from earlier but his voice was racked with so much uncertainty, as our brother disappeared out of sight with one final, sorrowful, glance back.

I was numb as others were taken and sold to people that appeared to have endless amounts of money to spend. I didn't even know why the vampires still traded with money it seemed pointless, but I suppose they still needed to keep a relatively organised system on things. They were still running nations after all and money could buy more land, until they started fighting over it that is.

Very slowly the Penn started to empty out until there was only a few humans left.

"Come on you two" a gruff voice finally ordered as someone took my arm. I'd given up with trying to fight it, and was led by to the stage easily. The only thing I felt, was relief at the fact that they took Emmett's threat seriously and that they were leading Edward up beside me until we were both standing on the centre of the platform.

"Well, well, well…" The auctioneer dragged out. "Seems we have a_ pair_ for sale" He laughed earning a range of chuckles from around the room.

I had lost my confidence when we had lost Emmett and I couldn't bring myself to look at the faces of the people that were looking at me like I was a chunk of meat hanging in a butchers shop, weighing me up with their eyes.

I stared at my worn trainers instead, knowing full well that I must have looked like a disgrace to them. A short, skinny girl with long black hair that was so tangled and knotted, it looked like something a bird might make a nest in, pale, but dirt and blood covered skin that looked grubbing and raw. The clothes I was wearing didn't help my case either, tatty jeans accompanied with a black tank top and a short leather jacket.

I looked like a complete joke. _Useless _was the word that summed me up.

Edward looked a little better in his hoody and jeans. At least he appeared to be capable of doing something.

"Hmmmm" the auctioneer pondered, struggling to find a way to sum us up. "The boy looks like he could handle some labour, good structure, well-built… and the girl, well she looks like she'd scrub up nice, might make a good maid?, could be good for the occasional drink?" He compromised, making me sound like a freaking hooker. I shivered. "I'll start the bidding at $10,000" he shrugged.

I felt my cheeks heat up in embarrassment.

$10,000 might have been a lot when humans ran the planet but now it was barely anything.

I had no idea why I was so embarrassed at having such a low starting bid? Either way it wasn't gonna make a difference, none at all.

"$10,000 do I hear $10,000..."

Nothing… if we weren't sold here what was going to happen to us? What was going to happen to Edward because I was too helpless looking to get a single bid? We were going to end up in a blood bank, or even worse…a breeding place all because of me.

I felt my cheeks flame up even more as the blood rose to them and my eyes started to water.

_Great now I'm going to look like a snivelling baby too. _I thought.

My eyes darted to the side were they met Edwards. I knew he knew what I thinking and his sombre expression was telling me to get those ideas out of my head right now but I couldn't, the auctions were my worst nightmare, they decided your fate; where you were going to end up and with who.

The auctioneer sighed. "Come on people, what if I lower the-"

"_$50,000"_ A voice rang out of the crowd. There was a collective gasp and even my head snapped up in bewilderment.

Did someone just say '_fifty' _thousand when I wasn't even worth the ten?

I scanned the crowds but I couldn't seem to find the owner of the masculine twang that had voiced the unexpected price. However, I became unexplainably drawn towards a shadowy corner, trying unsuccessfully to see into its depths with strained eyes.

"Uh $50,000?" the auctioneer asked in a shocked tone but soon composed himself. "$50,000, going once, going twice… and SOLD to…uh." He seemed confused.

I peeked at Edward, who glanced back at me, looking just as muddled.

After a minute a human boy made his way towards the stage. He climbed up the stairs and walked up to the auctioneer, whispering something into his ear, something that made the vamps eyes widen and the expression on his face become anxious.

"SOLD" he called out, not bothering to give a name to the buyer.

Everyone started to chat amongst themselves and Edward was trying to say something to me but I was still convinced that whoever had brought us was dwelling in the shadows of the corner, so I continued to stare in that direction, hoping to catch a glimpse of the buyer.

Suddenly I let out a surprised gasp and reeled back slightly when a dangerous glimmer of red broke the darkness I had been looking into. I blinked but as soon as I opened my eyes again I was met with the same darkness as before.

_It's was pair of eyes, _I thought uncertainly, heart quickening. But even if they were why was I so… shaken? Nearly everyone here had eyes as red as the fiery pits of hell so why were these any different?

I must have started hearing things too because even through the chatter going on in the room, I could have sworn I had heard an amused chuckle reach my ears.

Edward grabbed my shoulders to steady me and turned me to face him. "Are you ok?" he whispered.

"I-someone…" I looked over my shoulder but the place I had been fixated on was as dark and black as ever, no trace of red, no trace of probing eyes either. "Uh, I- I'm ok." I said shakily, as my arm was once again taken and we were lead off the stage and to the same exit that Emmett had disappeared out off.

Where were we going to be taken to, and more importantly_ who_ had bothered to buy us and _why_?

**Deltagirl74, definitely not another Carlisle. It's hard to explain without giving the whole game away but like I said there is a lot more to him then what you will see at first. He won't be an easy character to judge because he will have so many different motives driving his actions. **

**So… with Edward and Alice being split up from Emmett now I can start introducing all of the different POVs. I was going to have them all go their separate ways but I didn't have the heart to split up the twins. They've already lost Emmett I didn't think they'd handle being apart as well. **

**What do you think? Please leave me some opinions. **

**Emmie x **


	6. Chapter 6

**I'm glad people seem to be liking this, wasn't really sure it would work but I've got a few positive reviews and the story stats show people are reading so thanks. **

**I do answer questions so if you have any don't hesitate to ask. **

**Chapter 6 **

Alice's POV 

"Alice?"

"Alice?"

I blinked away from my trance, which mainly consisted of the hypnotising fuzziness that came with watching the world move by from the inside of a very fast car, and turned my head to look at my brother, who gave me a stiff smile.

"It's been ages since we've been inside of a car huh?" he asked trying to lighten the mood.

It wasn't that he was wrong; it_ had_ been a long time since we had been in a car, all cars belonged to the vampires now, so we had taken to jumping on cargo trains as a means of getting around instead (and let me tell you a car was a lot comfier), but I didn't think that this was the right time to be reminiscing about being in a one, especially when we were each handcuffed to the holds in the roof by a hand.

Edward cringed, knowing what I was thinking. "Bad attempt at looking on the bright side." He admitted, making me give him a tiny smile in return.

It was a situation in reverse; normally I was the one with my cup half full while Edwards remained half empty. His pessimistic attitude made up for my generally optimistic one but it seemed we had made a swap this time around.

"Shut up!" the driver rapped on the tinted divider blocking the front seats from the back, killing our voices instantly.

After being taken from the hall in the warehouse we had been brought to this black BMW where we were forced and fastened into the car by the driver. I didn't think he was the one that had brought us; he was just a courier for some sort of delivery service but I had no clue where he was supposed to be delivering us _to_.

It was a very long journey though, that was for sure, and I was glad the vampire remembered we were humans who had certain needs and therefore stopped off at gas stations once in a while so that we could either use the toilet or get a drink of water. This didn't exclude a few death threats if we tried to run away however, and there was too many vamps around anyway to even make an attempt at it.

I didn't know exactly how long we spent in the car but it must have been for more than one day because I remember dozing of a couple of times when it became darker outside.

"_Where are we?" _I mouthed silently to Edward After what seemed like an eternity.

Edward scanned the landscape through his window. The grass on either side of the road was sundried and straw like. In the far distance you could see quite a few tall buildings. They looked magnificent on the skyline in the shimmering sun and it seemed like a vaguely familiar view, almost iconic.

"_Somewhere down south" _He mouthed back.

My eyes widened.

"_Like south, _south?" I empathised.

"_Like, Texas south_" He replied to my utter dismay. It didn't matter where Emmett was now; if he wasn't here then he was most probably miles and miles away from us.

My shoulders slumped as I exhaled miserably, wondering how Emmett was doing wherever he was now.

Emmett's POV 

Hours I had been in this car,_ freaking_ hours. The stiffness in my neck was numbing but it was nothing compared to the pain I got in my chest when thinking about my two younger siblings.

_Were they ok? _

_Were they together?_

_Who had brought them? _

_Where were they now?_

_Was Edward coping? _

_Did Alice still have her pump?_

The questions became endless as the paranoia sunk in. I hadn't been apart from them in a little over two years and now we had just been torn away from each other without a care in the world.

I prayed to whichever God was listening that the scum at the warehouse auction listened to my warning and sold them together. It was bad enough that I wasn't with them but if they weren't together then they'd be all alone to deal with whoever they'd been sold to.

I didn't scare easily (even in the horror story our lives had turned into) but the thought of them being alone made my stomach churn in fear. It didn't matter that they were eighteen, they were still my responsibility, mine to watch over, it had been the last thing I promised my mom and now I couldn't even keep that.

If Mike wasn't dead already I would have throttled him myself, the worthless lunatic.

I was so riled up in my thoughts, I didn't even notice that the car had stopped until the back door swung open and the driver snapped the cuffs that where restraining me to the car door, with his bare hands.

"Watch the wrist!" I hissed at him, trying not to wince as he yanked me up and out of the car.

Thankfully my hand had been set back into place but occasionally a spasm of pain would hit it, running up my entire arm. It had turned a grim purple colour now and I didn't know how long it would take to heal, especially if I was going to be expected to do a lot of the physical labour that their lazy asses couldn't be bothered to do.

"Move it!" The guy ordered, making me send him a lethal glare before I finally started to acknowledge my surroundings.

It literally took a matter of seconds for me to know where I had been delivered to.

It was currently mid-April and the climate here was dull but humid, The sky scrapers all around me spoke for themselves and even with the takeover, the city still hadn't lost its hustle and bustle.

Vampires were everywhere, walking along the streets, greeting each other and going about their days, while silent _Submitants_ worked their way amongst the crowds, running errands for their owners and not making eye contact with their '_superiors'_.

Massive flat screens lined the sides of a few buildings, just waiting to broadcast the next rebel murder.

I remember only coming here once before for a school field trip when I actually had rights and the existence of vampires was only a fictional one. Back then it was an absolute wonder to visit, somewhere nearly everyone wanted to see. I had refused to come here in more recent times though, it was just too dangerous.

This was the city they say never slept…

This was Newyork…

"I said _move it_!" The guy repeated pushing me forwards. He had both my hands behind my back now so there was nothing I could do but comply as we made our way through the concrete jungle.

We walked down a path for quite a while receiving a variety of looks, ranging from smugness by the vampires to pity from the humans. I hated them all; they made it obvious that they knew I was a runner, an untamed human being that had only recently been put into captivity; it made it all the more humiliating.

Eventually we reached the end of the path and when the vampire behind me stopped pushing I realised with a start that we were standing at the entrance to a magnificent looking house right on the corner. In fact, the house _was _the corner as it continued once you turned on the sidewalk.

The property was white, with what looked like honeysuckle growing up the exterior. It gave off a very sophisticated vibe, like someone _extremely _important lived there.

I noticed a front door but the vampire steered me away from that. I obviously wasn't important enough to enter that way and was lead to the back of it instead, through a narrow alleyway going down the side where a less then superb entrance stood.

The vampire banged on the wooden door hard. It wasn't hard enough to hit the door down but it was loud enough to be heard, as it opened instantly to reveal a young human boy.

"The new human" the vamp barked pushing me forwards. "I will let Mr King know" was all he said before turning on his heel and walking away without so much as an explanation. When he was out of sight I backed away from the young boy, who looked unsurprised by my sudden appearance, to take him in visually.

He looked about Alice and Edwards's age and had caramel coloured skin with a shaggy array of jet black hair sitting on top of his head. The unnamed kid tilted his head to the side, surveying me with his brown eyes in what I could only describe as curiosity.

Before I could tell him to quit it, he grinned widely at me.

"Hi" He stuck out his hand. "I'm Seth. We were told you'd be coming."

I raised an eyebrow.

_Well isn't he just…chipper… _I thought bitterly.

"Emmett" I mumbled, taking his hand and giving it a quick, stiff shake.

"Come in Emmett." He motioned, opening the door wider.

I couldn't help but look over my shoulder. The vampire that had brought me here was no longer in sight. Maybe I could just make a run for it. These vamps didn't know me; there was a chance they wouldn't even bother to come after me if I ran. I could find out where the twins were and get them back. I could do it, I could…

"I wouldn't if I were you." I was broken out of my thoughts as my gaze focused back in on the kid…_Seth_. His grin had disappeared and he looked nervous as his eyes darted from left to right. "There's cameras always watching even if the vampires aren't already, you won't get as far as a step in the opposite direction." He whispered. "Trust me, people have tried it before."

I stared into his eyes icily, challenging him, but he held them and I knew then that he wasn't bluffing.

"Yo Seth" Someone suddenly called from the inside. "Close the door man"

I sighed, knowing that if I couldn't run then I couldn't just stand out here forever.

Taking this as a confirmation, Seth moved aside giving me space to enter. Reluctantly, I moved forwards until I found myself in a room, a kitchen I think, with a long table running through the middle of it. There were about a dozen people sitting around the table, sipping something from individual bowls.

"Wow you're just in time for lunch." Seth said from behind me, which seemed to catch the attention of the others in the room, who all stopped eating and turned to look at me too. I stared back, refusing to show any sort of weakness.

"Guys this is Emmett." Seth introduced.

There was a chorus of greeting from around the room as I fought the urge to roll my eyes at their casualness.

I mean I wasn't here to make friends and they shouldn't be so content either.

I caught a few names: Holly, Jamie, Mark, Ashley, Jacob, Leah…etc. but I honestly didn't care enough to take too much notice, like I said I wasn't there to get to know people and as soon as I had a chance I would be long gone in pursuit of Edward and Alice.

"Leah is my older sister, we come from a reservation up in Alaska with Jacob" Seth went on and I had to bite my tongue in an effort to stop myself from saying _"Good for you", _or something equally as hostile.

"Hey" I said quickly, not wanting to linger.

I felt awkward here. I didn't know what to do and quite frankly I didn't want to know.

"So normally the doctor would come and give you a check-up straight away but he's not here at the moment, must have other appointments, so you're just gonna have to wait." Jacob commented coolly.

_Doctor? Why would they be having me inspected by a doctor? _I thought bewilderedly. I hoped it wasn't to check my blood type, and if it was I hoped no one here was into _O negative._ I'd sell my soul to a chimpanzee before I become a walking snack dispenser.

"Are you hungry?" Leah asked me with a smile to which I responded by shrugging my shoulders nonchalantly.

_I was starving. _

They filled me up a bowl of whatever soup they had made and I sipped it silently, taking my time so that I didn't have to engage in any conversation. However, eventually I knew that I had to ask the million dollar question.

"_So_…" I began awkwardly. "Where am I?" I asked.

"Oh!" Seth hit his head, scolding himself, "Should have thought to tell you that. You're at the King residence. Royce King to be exact, he's a complete ass so if I were you I would stay clear of him, he's one you don't mess with" He finished taking on a serious tone.

I looked around. Well despite myself, it didn't seem too bad here; it wasn't like we were in a dungeon, lying in our own filth or anything.

"His wife is much more lenient" Jamie commented, noticing my confused expression. "I mean don't get us wrong, she's still a cold hearted bitch but she ensures we all have good living conditions and she's the reason why we've all been checked by the doctor upon arriving."

I noticed that all their voices were at low whispers, they obviously didn't want the noise travelling to the prying ears of the much more dangerous residents in the home.

I nodded. "So who's she then." I asked in a bored tone, might as well find out all that I could now instead of later.

"Rosalie King." Leah mumbled. "Despite her more tolerant nature she's pretty…"

"You can say that again" a boy smirked making Leah glare at him for cutting her off.

"pretty _Unpleasant_…" she corrected. "So I wouldn't do anything to get on her bad side either." She warned.

I nodded, not really caring whose bad side I got on for the moment.

"So what do I do now?" I asked, once my bowl was empty.

"Well I supposed you can catch some sleep." Jacob shrugged. "There is not much you can do until they give you a specific task."

"I'll show you to our room." Seth said jumping up and leading the way.

I could do nothing but follow.

**Deltagirl74, You asked me two questions. The first one I'm going to leave you to come to your own conclusion for now. However, I will answer the second. **

**_Yes, _but it will go both ways. I'm not exactly going to make it easy for them.**

**Tell me what you think guys. **

**-Emmie x **


	7. Chapter 7

**Ok so here's the deal, originally I was going to post a new chapter every night and I already have all the chapters up to 18 ready. **_**But**_** I'm guessing a lot of you want to get to the good stuff (the **_**Jasper**_** stuff) sooooo because he doesn't officially appear until chapter 14 I have decided that I'm gonna spam you with a bunch of the filler chapters tomorrow so that it doesn't **_**drag out**_** too much and you get bored. :)**

**This comes at a good time because I actually have some essays due this week so if I fail to update remember It will be made up for tommorow.**

**Plus I'm a Jasper maniac and **_**I **_**want him in the story as much as you guys do. ****:D **

**Chapter 7 **

Alice's POV 

I stared up at the mansion, absolutely astonished. It was huge, unremarkably so.

_Huge_ enough to take up acres and acres of land at least and that, to me, was downright ridiculous.

The car had only just stopped in the driveway, and when we had been allowed to exit, my trainers hit the gravelly ground with a crumbling thud as my eyes zoned in on the manor looming above us.

The driver, who I noticed was glistening slightly in the sweltering sunlight, grabbed a hold of Edward roughly by the elbow and started walking. Apparently he knew I wasn't stupid enough to try and run while my brother was in his grip so I shovelled along behind them with my head hanging miserably.

The three of us made our way up the long path and towards an elaborate archway.

Just beyond the archway I could see a set of French doors that I assumed was the entrance to the magnificent property and above them stood an idealistic balcony.

Behind the main balcony the property branched out into all directions. The roof was a greyish/blue colour while the house was a brilliant white.

I had no idea what kind of vampire(s) lived here but whoever did certainly liked the finer things in life that was for sure.

My heart was ready to implode inside of my chest once we reached the doors and our courier gave them a sharp rap with his fist. I had to mentally fight with the muscles in my arms to keep them from attempting to reach for my inhaler out of habit.

Seconds later the doors swung open to reveal a woman with long pale blonde hair and a symmetrical face, her red eyes sparkling brightly like a pair of polished rubies.

"Uh?" she said frowning when she was met with the sight of my brother and me.

I fought the urge to laugh. If I came across two people looking as shabby as what Edward and I had right then on my doorstep, I would have probably had the same reaction. Not that I was sympathising with her.

The driver must have said something too fast for human ears to catch because suddenly the woman glared. The kind of glare you'd give if someone was deliberately trying to annoy you.

"What _is_ he playing at?" she hissed, looking me up and down to make me feel even more worthless then what I had done on display at the auction.

Fine, I got it, vampires ruled the planet and there was nothing I, or any other human, could do about it. But sometimes I just couldn't understand why they failed to acknowledge we had feelings. I mean they must have been humans with feelings too once…_right?_

It looked like the woman at the door and the driver were continuing their conversation silently while Edward and I stood there uncomfortably; staring at the gravel on the ground like it was the most interesting find we had ever discovered.

We must have been standing there for at least a couple of minutes while both of the vampires were in some sort of anonymous argument.

I stole a glance toward Edward who looked as awkward as I felt as I watched him fiddle with the tassels on his dark grey hoodie.

Suddenly, without any warning there was a _whoosh_ of air that ruffled my hair and on the ground to the entrance of the house where I had been staring intently at, a pair of boots appeared standing next to the women's stilettos.

They appeared so suddenly that I jumped, head flying up to meet the maroon eyes of a man. He had short silvery-brown hair and a piercing sort of stare. He raised an eyebrow at me and I immediately dropped my gaze to the floor again, afraid of being accused of rudeness.

You never knew with these _people_.

In the long run I didn't care what they thought of me but it was our first day here (I hated to admit) and the best way to remain invisible to them, (until we found a way to get back to Emmett), was to give them no reason to remember us negatively.

That was going to be a lot harder than in sounded though, during the long car ride my distress had evolved into anger and defiance. Being upset wasn't going to make Emmett appear out of thin air and it wasn't going to bring our freedom back either.

Just like the woman had I could feel the man look both me and Edward up and down as if he was trying to find a possible reason for our existence on his doorstep.

"What's this?" He asked calmly after a moment. He didn't bother using his voice at a speed that Edward and I wouldn't be able to hear so naturally my ears perked up as I watched the ground quietly, occasionally peeking up them to watch their expressions.

Our driver sighed exasperatedly. "As I have just explained to _her_" he said thrusting a thumb in the woman's direction. "These two _miscreants-_" He continued shoving Edward in the shoulder to empathise and making my brother grit his teeth angrily. "-were sold at the Washington state auction to a member of _this_ household." He explained impatiently.

The woman turned to her companion in the doorway "You'll never guess who." She glared. "I don't know what game he is playing but if he's trying to piss someone off, he's_ definitely_ succeeded"

"This is not like him at all though." the guy sighed, pressing the bridge of his nose between his two fingers as if this was a stressful situation for_ him_.

The last time I checked, it was Edward and I who were the ones who had a real reason to be stressed. Not this guy

_Ha! I'd happily switch places with you. _I thought sarcastically, _as long as it remained purely circumstance and not species._ I added as an afterthought, snickering to myself inwardly. _Who in their right mind would _**choose** to become a vampire?

I continued to stare pointlessly at the ground but became confused once I couldn't hear any more of the discussion going on. They must have started speaking too quietly for us to hear again.

However, a sharp pain suddenly erupted in my side and I looked up to find Edward staring at me with an expression of disbelief as I realised he had been the cause to the discomfort having just shoved me.

I gave him a dirty look, but when his green orbs darted to the door were the two vamps were standing and I knew something wasn't quite right.

_Oh no, I couldn't possibly have…_

I turned my head and looked up sheepishly, meeting two pairs of agitated eyes.

_Yup I did…_

My thoughts hadn't been as silent as what I had thought they had been because it was clear they heard some sort of disturbance from me. I must've let a snicker or two slip from my thoughts down to my mouth.

_So much for remaining invisible_

My eyes darted between the pair, Praying that'd they just let it go and continue their conversation but as always my prayers went unheard as eventually, without taking her terrifyingly vibrant eyes off of me, the woman addressed the man standing to her right.

"I must have missed something-" She pondered looking as cold as dry ice. "-because I do not recall hearing something so blatantly funny." She continued, the sarcasm dripping from her lips. "What about you Peter?" she asked turning her head towards the guy who still hadn't taken his penetrating gaze away from mine.

Apart from initially attempting to remain invisible, I couldn't find any other reason to care about my actions, especially whether they were offended or not.

_Oh get over it._ I thought exasperatedly. However, I managed to keep those thoughts hushed up. If I ran my mouth now, I might as well wrap my _own_ hands around my throat and strangle_ myself_ to death.

"Nothing funny at all Charlotte" _Peter _replied. "Perhaps _it _would be kind enough to explain to us the joke." He said staring at me expectantly.

_It_ … IT!

I felt my cheeks heat up angrily and my fists ball.

_How dare he!_

Before I could snap, there was a pressure on my shoulder as Edwards restraining hand stopped me from saying something I'd live to regret.

Although Edward was more or less my anchor here, stopping me from sailing blindly into trouble, I didn't miss the glare he sent their way either.

"Well?" The Peter guy asked impatiently, ignoring Edward completely.

I knew I couldn't possibly blank him so I formulated the best possible response I could think of to reply to his request with.

"No joke" I said through gritted teeth, and I am sure they caught the hostile edge to my tone. I just hoped it wasn't enough to be called up on.

They each held my stare for a moment longer before continuing their conversation as if nothing had happened.

"Can't you just return them?" Charlotte, I assumed her name was, inquired clearly frustrated.

"No!" the driver snapped, like he had explained this already, which he probably had. "I can't return them; it is against the company policy."

Peter shook his head.

"No." he sighed. "There must be a reason he brought them..."

He paused, stopping to look at both me and Edward quizzically again, as if trying to work out a puzzle.

"Very well…" he continued eventually, addressing the driver. "You may leave us now." He instructed.

It might have seemed stupid but I almost didn't want the driver to leave us alone with these vampires. Apart from his lousy ass attitude, he pretty much let us be for our entire journey here.

However, without so much as another word 'Mr Driver guy' vanished.

_Great, just great, like this wasn't uncomfortable enough, _I thought glancing at the two in front of us, waiting for an order that would surely come.

Minutes later I found myself still awaiting instruction from the duo as I fought the urge to huff impatiently.

We were in Texas for heaven's sake. They might have been as cold as popsicles but we weren't and the day just seemed to be growing hotter and hotter by the minute. However, at the same time, if the two continued to analyse us like we were bacteria under a telescope I was almost certain we'd spontaneously combust anyway.

Edward's POV

Alice was growing agitated by the minute.

I could feel it radiating of her in waves. Kinda in the same way that the heat was radiating from the sun in the clear sky.

I knew what they were trying to do. I knew that they knew we were growing irritated from the scorching conditions. We had come from Washington after all. The rain capital of the universe as my family used to call it. We weren't use to a free sun and we weren't exactly dressed to be in its presence either.

They were testing us, testing our restraint, our _submission_, to take whatever was thrown our way and live with it.

I just hoped Alice didn't bite to it. She'd already demonstrated that she was one to be watched due to her oblivious attitude, anything else and there'd be no telling what they would do to her. My eyes swept to my left and luckily her sour glare was directed at the floor. I knew she would have preferred it to be boring holes into the two predators at the door instead though.

Finally, only when the beads of sweat were starting to run a course down my forehead, did the guy speak.

"In" he ordered, moving to the side slightly with the woman to let us pass.

I moved forwards first to insure they didn't try anything. I could feel my sister's presence right behind me as I went before stopping abruptly in what I could only describe as an _impressive_ entrance hall. The floor was polished and checked with diamonds of black and white and there was a brilliant marble staircase right in the centre of the huge room, twirling up elegantly to the floors above. There were artefacts and antiques everywhere ranging from old wooden dressers to the finally painted vases sitting on top of them. A number of closed doors outlined rooms that were waiting to lead people to their chosen destinations within the first floor.

All in all this one room looked like something from a different era all together and it was only the first one we had come across.

Alice stepped to my side and looked around wide-eyed. I knew she'd never admit it but she was definitely in awe.

"Right!" the guy barked, making me wince as both the vamps came to stand in front of us again after closing the door. "Name?" he ordered addressing me bluntly.

"Edward McCarthy" I replied dryly.

It was clear that both parties didn't want to be here under these circumstances. Granted Alice and I were more disadvantaged but at least this meant I could show them some resentment even if it was meniscal.

The twosome turned to Alice next.

"Name?" The guy repeated addressing her this time.

Alice didn't say anything and continued to stare at the ground as if something interesting was printed on its surface.

I hesitantly looked towards the two: Peter and Charlotte, I had heard them call each other, waiting to see what they would do. I quickly became relieved when it became apparent that they weren't particularly bothered by Alice's stubbornness as they continued to wait.

I guessed they were giving her a set time and if she didn't answer within that they'd do something about it. It was like being in kindergarten all over again.

_Do you want to get us killed? _I thought her way hoping she'd catch my twinly vibes.

By the slump of her shoulders she did as she sucked it up, sighed, and answered the original question directed at her.

"Alice McCarthy" She mumbled.

Charlotte raised a delicate white eyebrow probably at the revelation we were related but said nothing on the issue.

Just then I heard a door behind the vamps open and someone step out of it. It was clear from the sharp screech of shoes on the shiny floor, that when they saw the two vampires' in front of them the person skidded to an immediate halt. However, I couldn't really see them because that would mean having to stare past the two immortals in the room.

"You there" Peter commanded without even turning around to see who it was, take these two to the servant's quarters, _brief _them and you might want to try teaching that one" he said thrusting a thumb in Alice's direction. "Some manners"

"Yes we don't take too kindly too urchins here." Charlotte added.

"Of course sir…ma'am" Came a flustered feminine voice from behind the pair, obeying their orders promptly.

With one last penetrating stare, the couple vanished from site, finally taking the weight that had been sitting on my shoulders in their presence, with them.

I looked up to see who I suspected was a girl, although I still couldn't see her face as her hands were held out in front of her gripping a mountain of folded material that rose high above her head.

I looked around unsure of what to do until the girl finally spoke, poking her head around the tower in her arms.

"Hello." She smiled politely, taking us in. She had pretty, but tired, brown eyes with silky brown hair to match. It looked like it was done up in a messy bun but I still couldn't tell as half her physique was still hidden behind the wall of fabric. "I'm Bella." She introduced breathless from the weight in her arms.

"Edward" I replied with a solemn nod.

I couldn't tell but it looked like Bella blushed a little at my greeting, but before I could be sure she turned her attention to Alice, keeping the polite smile fixed on her lips.

Alice looked up from where she had been staring at the floor. I noticed that she had folded her arms across her chest looking as fed up as ever. Now that the two vampires had gone she didn't even have to hide how annoyed she was.

"Oh me?" she said, realising an arm to point at herself. "I'm_ 'it'…it the urchin... _nice to meet you." She greeted spitting the offending words with so much venom I thought she'd grown a set of cobra fangs.

I sighed. "Let it go Alice. For heavens sake"

Bella looked taken aback.

"Don't worry about her." I instructed earning a '_humph_' from dear Alice.

"Oh, um well," Bella stumbled. "I'm supposed to take you guys to where we stay so do you wanna, you know…" she said gesturing for us to follow her with her full arms.

"Yeah" I said jolting forwards, reaching for Alice's elbow to pull her and her stubbornness along with me. "Do you need some help with that?" I asked Bella before she had a chance to turn.

"Um…" she blushed crimson. "Well I just washed these and- um" she bit her lip, seeming to search for the right words. I stared at her confused, wondering what she was trying to say.

I looked to Alice questionably. Maybe she'd know. Alice rolled her eyes, a clear sign she did.

"Look at us Edward." She empathised by throwing her arms out around herself. "She just cleaned all that stuff. If you were her would you want _us_ touching them?"

_Oh… _I though,_ we're filthy. _

This time_ I _could feel the heat rise to my neck, while Bella sent me a sorrowful look.

"Just follow me." She told us, turning around and leading the way.

**So Peter and Charlotte huh? **

**The pieces are starting to come together.**

**There will be a lot more chapters throughout tomorrow because like I said I want Jasper introduced (I'm sure) as much as you do but still, as you will see, his absence only adds to the excitement and the suspense. **

**- Emmie x**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**As I promised, this is the first of the few chapters I will be posting tonight, sorry if the punctuation/grammar/spelling is a bit off I had to work hard to get them all up now. **

**enjoy. **

Emmett's POV 

I was laying on the bottom of a bunk bed, trying my hardest to fall asleep but it was useless. I couldn't even close my eyes without seeing the look on the twin's faces when I was being taken from the auction warehouse, Edwards's hopelessness and Alice's terror.

I hoped Edward was keeping an eye on Alice. She had a tendency to be unaware and sometimes even short-tempered when she was frightened. I hoped she didn't say anything that would get her into a lot of trouble.

And I hoped Alice was keeping an eye on Edward too. I didn't want him getting himself into trouble either, which he could _easily_ do, especially when he was in _smart ass_ mode.

I didn't even want to think of the possibility that they weren't together, in a _bloodbank, _or _worse_. That just wasn't a road I wanted to go down at that moment.

I turned to my side and surveyed the room I was in. It was a reasonable size with several other bunk beds all aligned in a neat row like something from a boot camp. Seth had told me this was the men's area, while the women had a room next door.

Drawing in a breath, I let out a growl of frustration, lying down was making me feel uneasy and pathetic but I didn't know what else to do. Seth had gone back to the kitchen leaving me alone with my thoughts, which were only making me feel even more nauseous.

Finally sitting back up, I put my head in my hands, pulling at my hair in frustration.

_I don't want to be here._ The words repeated in my head like a broken record.

I. _Don't._ Want. To. Be. Here

My fist shot out in a sudden fit of rage, slamming into the metal bed post and causing the whole frame to rock. A hot burst of pain shot up my arm as fast as a lighting strike and I automatically realised that I had hit the tough metal with the hand owned my hurt wrist.

I didn't care.

I punched it again and again, so many times I lost count, mentally rejoicing when the physicality of the pain merged together with the mental emotions that hurt even more, the anger, torment, _pain_… intertwining until I couldn't tell which was which anymore. It all just bundled together into hysteria.

Someone clambered into the room having probably heard the echoing of my fist connecting with the hard iron but I didn't stop. I went on and on and on, even when someone tried to grab my hands.

Someone else was also trying to talk to me but I couldn't hear a word they were saying.

They most likely thought I was a mad man.

Finally the tangle of emotion turned to exestuation and with one final blow, my hand slipped down from the metal to lie limply on the thin mattress below it. I slumped into a heap on the mattress and closed my eyes until sleep came.

Alice's POV

Bella led Edward and I over to a small wooden door right at the end of the hall we had previously been standing in. I didn't notice it before due to the sheer magnificence of the room but I wasn't surprised that I hadn't. That _one_ door was ratty and worn and it looked as if it were invested with a colony of woodworm.

Bella who looked about our age, pushed the door open with her hip to reveal a small flight of stairs going downwards.

"Close the door behind you." She instructed. "And watch your step, its dark."

I didn't like the sound of that but I did as I was told.

After pulling the door closed, I placed both of my palms on either side of the rough wall making my way down slowly and being careful not to bump into Edward. If I hit him, he'd hit Bella and then we'd _all_ go tumbling down.

Finally, when I reached the bottom, I continued to follow them down a small hall that led us to another door, which Bella pushed open too.

It took a couple of seconds for my eyes to adjust to the sudden light, but when they did I noticed that I was standing in a small room.

A small room with _lots_ of people in it

One side of the room was made up of mattresses and another side consisted of the things you may find in a kitchen, a stove, a small (and I mean _small_) fridge, and some pillows that most of the people in the room were sitting on, eating out of small tins.

Bella put the material in her arms down on top of a wooden drawer set and then coughed to announce our presence, the group instantly turned towards us.

"Everyone this is Edward and Alice." Bella introduced pointing to us in turn. "They're _new _here" she explained.

My eyes swept over the large group. There had to at least be thirty people cramped in the tiny area. Men and women of all ages, although me, Edward and Bella seemed to be the youngest there.

No one said anything and just stared at us like we were aliens from the planet Jupiter, making Bella emit a second light cough.

"You'll have to excuse everyone." She said to us. "You see we aren't use to being around _runners_." She told us truthfully.

_Ah so they are all submitants _I thought. That explained the wariness in their eyes as they gazed at us and also why the two vampires upstairs had been shocked at our appearance too. All their slaves had surrendered to them; none had actually been _caught_ and _brought _until now.

The thought made my skin crawl. Why were _we_ different?

"Hello." Edward said politely, trying to break the ice, which worked because eventually people started to get up and introduce themselves.

Liam

Siobhan

Nahuel

Sasha

Eric

Sue

…

I couldn't keep track of them all, but I found the willpower to give each one a polite nod or handshake.

"So" Bella started once everyone was introduced. "As you can see this is where we eat and over there is where we sleep." She pointed out. "We'll have to lay out some more blankets for you guys." She added.

It surprised me a little that we all had to sleep in the same room but I wasn't gonna pretend I was shocked. We were no more than animals to vampires. They didn't care about our privacy no more than they cared for anything other than our blood.

"What's through them?" I pointed out. There were two small doors at each corner of the room.

"They lead to the bathrooms." Bella replied coldly. I didn't think she liked me very much, which was fine by me even if I wasn't exactly sure why. "The right is the women's and the left is the men's. There's a small shower inside, a toilet, some soap, excreta." She clarified.

That was gonna be fun. There was about 17 men and 16 women each having to share a bathroom. I was going to dread the mornings, but at least it was better than nothing, and at least it had all the basic bathroom necessities even if I knew that was only because we couldn't exactly go upstairs and serve the people in the main house looking like we had just clawed our way out of our graves.

Bella walked over to a wardrobe and pulled out some blankets, which Sasha (I think her name was) took from her and then started to lie neatly at the end of the row of mattresses. Bella then proceeded to look me up and down. I didn't know what she was doing but if I had to guess I would say she was trying to work out my size.

Once Bella was done looking at me, she pulled out two dresses. "The grey one is for upstairs." She told me. "And the white one is for when you're down here."

I took in the two petite dresses she held up in her hands. The grey dress was simple and plain with a seam in the middle separating the top from the skirt. It finished just below the knee and the arms ended at the elbow.

Bella then reached into the cupboard and pulled out a small pair of black ballet shoes "These go with the grey one."

The white dress was more like a nightdress. It didn't gather in at the waist and just ran straight down until it stopped a little above the ankle, the short sleeves ended a little past the shoulders. I noticed there were no shoes to go with that one.

"Let me know if they need taking in, they might be a little big." She commented.

Hoping that the dresses were just spares (and not the belongings of someone before me who was no longer_ here_)

I looked to my side and saw Liam giving Edward instructions on the clothes he had given him too.

Bella pulled out a newly packed toothbrush next, it looked like they had a stash of them. "That's yours" she said bluntly, handing it to me. "Keep it under your mattress and take it with you when you need it. Same goes for this hairbrush and the towel." she said handing me both.

"Thanks." I replied glumly. All of this was just confirming our new residence here when it was something that we did not want.

"You might wanna go and have a shower now." She recommended, handing me the white dress. "We won't be going back upstairs again until tomorrow." She walked over to the newly made _makeshift_ beds and placed the rest of the clothes on top.

I looked in Edwards's direction again and saw that Liam had set him up to. We gazed at each other for a second, Edward giving me a small smile of encouragement and then we each made our way in opposite directions of the room, me to the right and him to the left.

"Wait!" Bella called quietly coming up behind me. She pushed some undergarments into my chest. "Didn't want to give you these while everyone was watching." She explained.

"Thanks" I repeated.

I opened the door to the girl's bathroom and then closed it behind me, pulling a small bolt that locked me in the room. I looked around; it was small like everything else so far. A toilet sat in the corner next to a sink, above the sink there was a worn looking cupboard with a mirror on the front.

I opened it.

Inside there were a number of shampoo, conditioner and shower gel bottles. I selected three at random, not really caring what they smelt like and placed them along with the dress, on top of the closed toilet seat.

I then took the brush and attempted to brush through my dry unruly hair but it wouldn't budge, the bristles kept getting caught in the mud and blood that had hardened amongst the locks.

Whimpering I cringed at my reflection in the mirror, the more I pulled the harder it hurt. I tried soaking it all in the sink but that was no use either. Eventually I gave up and threw open the cupboard for a second time.

A pair of scissors gleamed down at me from the top shelf, and before I could change my mind I grabbed them and made the first cut watching as a long tangled strand of black hair fell to the floor. I didn't stop until my hair fell in short layers, some wisps just brushing the tips of my shoulders.

I might have cared about it being so short a long time ago, but right then it was barely even a _blip_ on my radar. It would grow back anyway.

I hastily swept the discarded pieces of hair up with my hands and placed them in a bin sitting in the corner. I then tried my hair with the brush again, it was still tough but I managed to get it all brushed out.

Finally, I started to strip from my clothes, peeling the mud and blood caked material from my body and folding each piece neatly until it all stood in a stack on the floor. I picked up the bottles sitting on the toilet seat and placed them on the floor next to the thin box shaped shower in the room, before turning it on.

Stepping into the scolding spray of hot water, I stood there like a zombie watching the grime melt away from my skin to swirl down the drain like a dirty whirlpool.

Unable to stand on my quaking legs anymore, I slipped to the floor and placed my head on the top of my knees that I hugged to myself with my arms. A tear slipped from my eye and then another and then another until my body wracked with sobs. I thought of the loss of our freedom, the loss of Emmett and a life that had fallen apart.

I had never cried so much before, with the exception of the day I had sat in the abandoned house, fresh with the death of my parents.

I sat there for a little while just thinking until I forced myself to get back up and finish my shower, it was a small thing I could be grateful for, being able to clean myself up and it sounded strange but the tears seemed to cleanse me, making me feel lighter.

I washed my newly shot hair and myself, before finally stepping out of the narrow box. When I finally pulled my new clothes on. The dress was a tiny bit too big but it was extremely comfortable and light so I didn't mind.

Running the brush through my hair one last time, I briefly wondered what Edward would think of it as I made sure the space was clean and to gather up all my stuff before heading towards the door. I was just about to unbolt the lock when I heard a torture filled cry.

My eyes widened horrified. _That was Edward._

A painful sensation tore through the palm of my right hand but I ignored it as I dropped all my things, undid the lock and ripped open the door intending to run to wherever Edward was, but instead, as soon as the door opened I was immediately shoved back inside by two people.

"What are you _doing_?" I cried, noticing that one of the people in question was Bella.

"What did you do to Edward?" I shouted at her as a third person entered the room.

My eyes bulged in complete disbelief as I saw what the woman in the doorway was holding in her hand.

It was a branding iron and the tip of it white with heat.

"I'm sorry Alice. It has to be done." Bella said sadly as I thrashed in her arms.

I had been ambushed…again. Only this time it was by my _own_ species.

I shook my head from side to side, my voice frozen in my throat as the other woman took my right arm and forced it onto the top of the toilet seat, bringing me to my knees as Bella held my left arm behind my back. I tried to kick backwards at them but she knelt on the back of my legs.

The other woman flipped my hand over so that my palm was facing upwards.

Knowing what they wanted to do to me, I closed my palm into a tight fist refusing to let them anywhere near it.

"Siobhan!" The woman with the hot poker called.

A woman I had met earlier, a muscular lady with thick black hair, violet-blue eyes and an Irish accent appeared in the doorway. She looked to be in her early 30s, and I looked up at her pleadingly, hoping that she would help me.

"What is it?" She asked nervously, refusing to meet my eyes.

"I need you to hold her hand out." the woman with the poker said.

"I told you I wasn't having anything to do with this." Siobhan argued.

"Would you rather have the vampires do it?" The woman replied. "You know they wouldn't be the tiniest bit _sympathetic_."

"She's just a kid." Siobhan tried.

"And a _runner_-" the woman continued. "If we don't brand her we'll all be punished for sure."

"Peter said to_ brief_ them." Bella nodded, "you know that meant _this_ as well."

Siobhan's shoulders slumped and she looked over at me pitifully before moving forwards.

I shook my head back and forth again,"No." I tried but Siobhan knelt down on the other side of the seat and pried my fingers away from my palm. I only then noticed that her right hand was scarred. It looked like a burn. In fact they all seemed to have the same mark.

_Why didn't I notice before? _I thought to myself hysterically.

Bella seemed too squeeze my left hand in weak attempt to comfort me, and I looked up to see her looking ashamed.

She might not have liked me but I knew she knew what they were doing was wrong.

"Please" I begged her, one last ditch attempt to stop what was about to happen, but she just looked away guiltily.

I looked back just in time to see the woman bringing down the hot implement and held my breath which was shaking, _terrified._

When the sizzling mental touched the part of my palm that extended out into my thumb I let out a piercing scream. Someone covered my mouth with their hand to stifle the sound, but my agonized cries seemed to echo hollowly around the room anyway.

Emmett's POV

I shot up with a gasp.

When I opened my eyes again I squinted in the hard light, confused.

_What time is it? _I thought.

I gazed around the bottom bunk, trying to figure out why I was still there. Something caught my eye and I turned my head to look bewilderedly at the bed post. It was covered in dried blood, and only then did I feel the crippling agony that had become of my hand and wrist.

I let out a pained groan.

What had I done?

"You gave the others quite a fright" a masculine voice spoke.

My head snapped forwards, where my eyes came to land on a man sitting on the bottom bunk of the set opposite me.

My nostrils flared immediately, like a bull's would once seeing red.

"Who the fuck are you?" I glared at the man. He had on a black pair of trousers accompanied by a smart pair of black shoes. He wore a long white jacket and under that I could see a light coloured shirt holding a black tie. Next to him on the bed there was a brief case.

I took the time to examine his face because it was the face that threw me off the most. Pale, chalky white skin, blond hair… Every one of his perfect features told me he was one of _them. _Yet his eyes, his eyes were _gold_.

The guy gave me a look of disapproval, obviously unimpressed by my choice of language but I found it hard to care.

"I'm Doctor Carlisle Cullen, You're Emmett correct?" The man replied.

I looked at him uncertainly, waiting for the punch line but when he didn't give one I ended up letting loose a bellowing laugh anyway.

"You!" I said between breaths. "-a doctor? You have to be _fucking_ kidding me." I chortled. This guy was absolutely deranged if it thought he was a doctor, especially _my _doctor.

"Why? May I ask? Do you find that so hilariously funny." The guy asked calmly.

I sucked in a last breathy laugh. "Leeches _can't_ be _doctors_." I said coldly, like it was the most rational thing in the world.

The man's molten gaze suddenly turned hard.

"And _humans_ have no right to talk to _leeches_ like _that_." He said dangerously, before getting up.

I gave him a nasty look but when he started walking towards me I shot up and backed away from him.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

There was dried blood all over the place. I wasn't going to let him come anywhere _near _me.

"I want to see your wrist." He replied continuing to move forwards.

"You don't need you to see it." I snarled sourly. "So piss off."

"Look _boy_" he cautioned "I've tried to be civil with you but we can do this the easy way or the hard way and the hard way involves getting the people who own you down here, which I am _very_ sure they will not be too happy about so I suggest you sit down and shut up." He said. "I'm not intrested in your blood; I just want to examine your hand, unless you want it to go untreated and in that case you can live with it when it doesn't heal properly and ends up being a sorry excuse for a limb."

I gazed at my hand. It looked bad, mangled almost. I needed it if I was going to get away from here easily.

With one lingering death glare I sat back on the bed and held it out. One of them was enough for me I didn't want any more down here too.

The _Doctor_, Cullen or whatever, pulled the bunk bed he had been sitting on closer to mine with no effort whatsoever and sat down again. He then took my hand in his and proceeded to inspect it.

I stopped myself from flinching at the coldness of his probing fingers.

"Your friend's told me they couldn't get you to stop punching that pole." He commented without looking up. "Why were you hitting it in the first place?" he asked.

"Because I was angry" I snapped. "And they are not my friends" I added.

"Why were you angry?" He asked.

"What is this? 20 questions" I retorted bitterly.

"Not at all." The Doctor replied. "I'm just trying to work out whether you are fit enough to work."

"Well I am." I grumbled. "Not that it would matter if I wasn't."

"You didn't do your hand any favours though." He countered ignoring my second comment. "You have a fractured wrist and two broken fingers." He mused. "Now I can understand the finger's" he said motioning towards the pole. "-but what about the fractured wrist?"

"One of _your _lot" I spat.

"I see." He nodded, pressing on the purple bruises around my wrist, causing me to suck in a breath of air through my teeth. "And you re-set it yourself?" he inquired.

"My brother." I answered.

"He did an excellent job" the doctor praised.

"Well that's Edward for you." I replied, fighting the small grin that came whilst thinking about my genius of a brother.

"Is this Edward the reason why you're angry?"

My jaw dropped. I had told him this without even thinking. What the hell was wrong with me? He was one of_ them_.

The doctor let free a hearty laugh. "Don't look so shocked, they say I'm an easy person to talk to." He promised.

I closed my mouth and sighed. If this guy wasn't going to leave me the hell alone then I might as well talk to him. What harm could it do?

"Fine, but if I tell you all you want to know then you also have to answer a question for me." I comprised. I didn't like this guy but he was a lot better than all the other vampires I had met.

"Agreed." He said opening his brief case to reveal all his '_doctory' stuff_.

"I was – am _still_ – angry because I'm here when I should be with the two people I swore I would stay with."

"Edward?" The doctor asked.

"Yes and our sister Alice"

"How old are they?" he questioned.

"18" I replied watching as he started to dab at the dried blood on my hands with a spirit covered cloth.

"Both?"

"They're twins" I said, hissing when the liquid on the cloth touched an open wound on my knuckles that must have happened while I had been in my… _state_.

"Where are they now?"

"I don't know." I replied stupidly. "I was sold before them. I have no idea where they could be." I huffed.

"I'm sorry" The doctor responded with genuine sympathy.

I couldn't understand why though. He was a vampire he wasn't supposed to care; he wasn't supposed to feel _anything._

"Don't pretend to give a damn." I commanded bluntly.

Looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite place, he started to wrap my fourth and middle finger up in a tight splint.

"Hey" I exclaimed. "I _need_ that finger." I said motioning to my middle finger with my good hand.

"All the more reason why I should wrap it up" The doctor commented without looking up. "I doubt your owners will appreciate your appalling sense of humour."

Once he was done with my fingers he wrapped my wrist up too and then stood.

"I will tell your owner that you're fit enough to work" he said. "But please refrain from punching anymore poles. He then turned away and started for the door.

"Why are your eyes gold?" I demanded, making him turn to face me again just when he reached the door. He looked at me quizzically. "You owe me the answer to a question." I reminded him.

He thought about it for a few moments and then smiled. "Let's just say I'm on a special diet." He replied making me scowl at him.

"That's not really an answer is it?" I barked but he ignored me.

He started to leave again but paused for a second, this time not bothering to turn around. "If I hear anything of your brother and sister, I will not hesitate to let you know Emmett." He promised before, vanishing into thin air.

I don't know why but I found myself believing him.

"I'll hold you to that." I said to myself.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Edwards POV 

I fell to my knees in agony, just as the piercing screams filled the air.

"ALICE!" I yelled recognising her voice anywhere.

I tried to get up and stumble towards where the sounds were coming from but someone grabbed my elbow, forcing me back.

"It's best you stay here lad." Liam said in his think Irish voice.

"You _stay_ the fuck away from me!" I growled. Spit flew from my mouth in rage, making me sound, and probably look like, a rabid animal.

I had just walked out of the bathroom after my shower when a group of men rushed me, I had watched while they heated a branding iron on the stove and then shoved it onto the palm of my hand, pressing it into my flesh for several seconds until I let out a howl.

The Iron smoked as it seared my skin, and when it was finally pulled away the singed surface started to blister and weep almost immediately. I knew instantly that the burn was so severe that it would leave a permanent scar.

I barely noticed as the door to the other bathroom whipped open and a group of people rushed inside, I barely noticed the sounds of a struggle coming from the area and as someone else headed towards the room too, but I did notice Alice's high pitched cry.

I tried to move forwards but Liam held onto the back of my new shirt with strong arms.

The screaming ended as soon as it had started and shortly after, the door opened again to reveal a sick looking Bella. I glowered fiercely at her, but she wouldn't meet my eyes.

She had been the first human we had met here and I had thought that I could trust her.

_I guess I was wrong._

"She passed out." Bella said quietly as the other women stepped beside her. I noticed that one of them had the hot iron in her hands.

The lady with the deep black hair, Siobhan, looked towards Liam sadly, who nodded and pushed me backwards. He walked towards the room Alice was in and a minute later he was walking out of it, with my unconscious sister in his arms.

"Let go of her!" I shouted at him.

"Edward please" Bella tried, making her way over to me warily. "You have to be quiet, _they'll hear." _She pleaded looking up at the ceiling.

"Do you think I care?" I scoffed. "You're no better than them. You just _branded _us like we are animals at a freaking factory."

The pain on my palm was pulsing with heat, only fuelling my anger.

I watched as Liam carefully placed Alice down on the covers they had arranged for us earlier, and then as he backed off. I ran to them and dropped down beside her.

She looked ashen but luckily her breathing was even so I knew she hadn't suffered from an attack.

I grabbed her hand and flipped it over gently. The raw, interlacing initials, _'MC'_ were boiling on the surface of her pale skin.

An exact replica was sweltering on my own.

I didn't even care what the letters stood for, only that they were there.

I heard a quiet noise and my head shot up to see Bella making her way over softly, holding something in her hands. I glared, daring her to come any closer.

"You should wrap your hands up in this." She said holding out a roll of Clingfilm. "It will keep it sterile and-"

"I know what it does." I shot at her, leaning up to snatch the roll out of her hands.

Clingfilm didn't stick to the skin; it protected it from infection and had soothing qualities too.

I started to wrap Alice's hand in the stuff, careful not to pull at it too tightly.

When I was done giving her a couple of layers, I tore it away from the main tube and then started to do the same to my own hand.

Once that was finished I placed the tube on the floor and turned to face the others, giving them a disgusted look. "Is it safe for us to even sleep in this place?" I asked. We couldn't leave but I needed to shut them out before I made a scene that would disturb Peter and Charlotte or any other vampires in the house.

"Of course it is!" Bella gasped. "We didn't want to hurt you Edward we-" but I ignored her, lying down on the covers to stare up at the ceiling. I closed my eyes and tried to shut out the scorching pain.

Bella's POV

I felt terrible.

It's wasn't like I had wanted to do that, especially not to Edward, he seemed like a pretty nice person.

I even felt bad for Alice too; Although I wasn't very fond of _her_.

I had no idea why I didn't like her. I tried to think that it wasn't because I had seen Edward tug at her arm protectively whilst we had been upstairs even after she had been an outright bitch to him and told him frankly why I didn't want him touching the washing in my hands when I had tried to be nice about it.

It couldn't be jealousy, I wasn't the jealous type and I had only just met the guy, not to mention the fact relationships were the last thing on my mind at the moment, but having said that there was still something I just noticed instantly about Edward, and now, now he hated me.

_I would hate me too, if I was him._

I looked at my own palm, seeing the initials _'MC'_ staring up at me. The _'C'_ swirled into the end of the _'M'_ looking more like a symbol then two individual letters. Mine was no more than a shiny, upraised scar now and eventually, in time, there's would be the same.

The difference was that we had all be given anaesthetic injections to numb the pain of obtaining the brand, by a doctor at a warehouse as soon as we had surrendered, they had been forced to withstand the pain of it.

Perhaps it was the vampire's idea of punishing them for being _runners_, I didn't know, but when Peter told me to_ brief_ them, I knew I couldn't take them both upstairs the next morning without the mark of ownership on their hands, so once they were in their showers I had slipped back upstairs to get the specially designed branding iron from the fire place in the huge living area and brought it down.

Siobhan and Liam weren't happy about doing it at all, but they knew we didn't have much of a choice.

Edward had come out of the bathroom first and let out a yell as the hot metal touched his skin. I knew it was only a matter of time before Alice would shoot out the other bathroom too, so I waited outside with Sue and Sasha. Sue was the oldest women there so it wasn't a surprise to me that she had been the one to wield the poker.

Alice was resistant so Sue called for Siobhan. I couldn't watch as the metal seared into Alice's flesh, feeling sick at the whole scenario, I had always been squeamish.

She screamed, a loud tortured cry but Sasha placed a hand over her mouth, afraid the vampires would hear her.

I was amazed she lasted as long as she did before finally slumping in our arms.

After Edward had closed his eyes I went and changed and was now sitting on a pillow, thinking sadly to myself. "Hey it's not your fault Bells." Eric comforted, coming to sit on the pillow next to mine. I gave him a small smile before looking down miserably.

Edward and Alice had been asleep for a couple of hours now. She was curled up into a tight ball on her side while he was laid flat on his back, his left hand behind his head so that it was being used as a pillow. His plastic wrapped hand was laid across his chest not moving at all.

It seemed he was a careful sleeper, unlike Alice who was fidgety and would occasionally let out a tiny moan every time her hand brushed up against something.

Siobhan came out of the bathroom, carrying Alice's things.

"She dropped it all inside." She murmured, before starting to fold everything up. "We'll have to wash her old clothes." She said shaking out a worn, dirty pair of jeans.

Suddenly, something clattered to the floor and we all looked down to see an inhaler roll to a stop on the ground.

I blinked, not expecting _that_ at all.

Siobhan closed her eyes.

"Lord have mercy" She whispered "She's _Asthmatic_. She could have suffered an attack and we wouldn't have realised what was happening." She spoke louder, referring to what we had done, "She could have died!" she exclaimed staring at us, clearly tormented.

She was right. We had no idea that she could have been asthmatic and we wouldn't have thought to check her clothes if something _had_ happened.

I felt awful and judging by looks on everyone's features, they did too.

Liam got up and put an arm around his wife. "Don't fret Shiv." He comforted. "The main thing is that she is ok."

"We better make sure that she keeps that hidden." Sue said. "You know how they feel about _sickly _humans.

Although. I didn't think asthma was necessarily an issue, the vampire's just assumed things like that meant you couldn't do anything, so I knew they couldn't find out about her condition, even if they had brought her anyway.

That was something I couldn't quite understand. Edward looked like a reasonable enough buy, he looked strong and skilled, but Alice, Alice was petite and delicate, she didn't look as if she could even pick up a stack of books, let alone carry them.

Liam reached down to pick up the pump. It probably shouldn't have been on the floor for too long.

"That's mine!" A shrill voice cried.

My head whipped around just in time to see Alice jump up from her nest on the floor and surge forward. The long white dress made her look even smaller than what she already was.

She plunged to her knees where the inhaler had fallen and was just reaching for it with her right hand when she saw the Clingfilm bandage. She seemed to remember the pain.

"Ah!" she hissed, staring at her hand wide-eyed.

Liam swept the pump up easily and extended it out to her. She grasped at it with her left hand awkwardly and pulled it vigorously away from him before climbing to her feet.

Cupping her right hand close to her chest, Alice stared us down, I knew from her facial expression that she was hurting but she was trying her hardest not to show it.

I remembered her snarled, raven coloured, hair being a lot longer before but know it just reached the baseline of her neck, curling upwards ever so slightly.

"Look Alice" I started. "We had to do it ok." I said showing her my own hand. "We would have all gotten into a lot of trouble if they noticed you hadn't been marked."

She didn't answer me, and instead looked over to where Edward was still sleeping, relieved to see him there.

"Alice…" I tried again after a moment.

"What!" she snapped. "You had to do it. Fine! I get it."

We we're all silent for a moment, her words ringing around the room like a sharp chime.

"I'm so very sorry." Siobhan whispered after a while but Alice chose inflexibly not to hear her.

I lost my cool. I had had enough of this girl. This was _not _our fault, especially not Siobhan's who had one of the kindest hearts I knew. As if I of all people deliberately wanted to hurt someone. Crushing a bug made me ill.

"If it makes you feel any better." I said bitterly. "Your _boyfriend_ was furious, and perhaps if you would stop being such a pompous little brat you would see that the people around you are genuinely sorry." I spat at her sourly.

Alice blinked, looking totally stunned for a moment before her eyes welled up. At first I assumed that it was out of pain, sadness, sorrow, shame…? But then got the shock of my life when she let out a girlish giggle, forgetting her hand all together, and I realised the girl was _laughing _tears. She didn't stop and eventually she had everyone looking at her as if she had lost her mind.

"You?" she giggled. "Me? – him?" She wasn't making any sense, which was making _me_ annoyed.

"What is so funny?" I asked, bringing her out of her hysterics. She wiped at her eyes and straightened up, biting her lip as if she was debating what to say to us.

Eventually her green eyes turned hard again.

"I'm not angry that you _had_ to do this!" she said holding up her hand. "I'm angry at _how_ you did it!" She exclaimed, throwing her arm in the direction of the bathroom door. "I didn't know what was going on and you treated us no better than you would a cow. If you had just _told_ us that it needed to be done then we would have understood and reacted differently. How long have we been living under these new rulers? Don't you think we know they do crazy things to people?" she asked. "As humans I would have thought you would have had the decency to tell us _why_ first instead of rushing us like that. We're not stupid; we wouldn't want you getting into trouble for _us_." She finished.

Siobhan dropped her head, and everyone including myself looked ashamed as Alice played with the ends of her hair, avoiding eye contact.

"We should have thought of that." I admitted after a while. "We really are sorry"

It took a few minutes of utter silence and a look of concentration on Alice's face before she spoke again.

"I guess I forgive you." She sighed quietly. "_All_ of you" she said glancing at Siobhan. "It's just Edward you have to work on now. He's not very good with forgiveness." She told us straightforwardly. "This _hurts_, and he is such a baby when it comes to burns."

I nodded. "I understand." I said. "And I'm sorry I called you a pompous little brat." I added for good measure, maybe Alice wasn't as bad as I had assumed.

"That's ok." Alice smiled slightly, taking her pump and going to lie back down. It was nearly time for us all to head to bed anyway. She closed her eyes and for a split second I thought she had fallen straight back to sleep but then she spoke again without opening her eyelids.

"Oh and Bella" She said, making me look at her in confusion, I was surprised to find a huge smile was plastered on her face.

"What?" I asked.

"Edward is _not_ my boyfriend" She commented.

"He's not?" I asked.

"Nope" she replied.

_Oh, _I thought as I headed towards my mattress along with everyone else. Someone turned off the light as I made myself comfortable and closed my eyes.

"He's my_ brother_." Alice said into the darkness, igniting an array of stifled laughter from the others who didn't sound so shocked.

"It's definitely in the eyes." Liam chuckled quietly from his place.

My face flamed.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Emmett's POV 

I fiddled with the collar of my new white polo shirt.

It was irritatingly itchy.

"Do we really have to wear this" I asked Seth, who was adjusting his own shirt.

"Yup" He said popping the 'P'.

As soon as the doctor had left the previous day, I had gone out into the kitchen and apologised to everyone for the crazy actions they had witnessed from me in my first couple of hours there.

I wouldn't normally have cared but there was just something about that doctor that made me feel slightly… _humble_ in his presence and even for a while after he had left.

Didn't mean I liked him though. Everything about a vampire doctor for humans was insane.

You didn't see a fox mothering a litter of baby rabbits only to go out and catch another one for its dinner later did you? It was strange thing to think of and the more I thought of it the more it baffled me.

And also - being rude to the humans around me wasn't going to get me to wherever Alice and Edward were any faster. I hadn't even formulated a plan of action yet and if I wasn't in the good books of the people I had to live with, doing so would only be harder.

I laced my new shoes up and then I took a moment to observe myself in the full length mirror that was nailed to the wall on one side of the bedroom.

I wrinkled my face at my reflection.

"I look like a fool." I moaned.

Seth laughed at my disgust.

"So what are do I have to do?" I asked as we made our way out of the room.

"Well you see everyone's got their own list of jobs." Seth started as we met everyone else in the kitchen. There was a large plate of buttered toast in the middle of the table and a jug of orange juice by its side. Seth took the jug and poured out two glasses before snatching up a handful of toast to place in front of us. "Percy, for example, looks after the back garden while Holly polishes all the silver, but _they_ can get us to do anything else whenever they feel like it, and _we_ have to do whatever they say, so usually our jobs change a lot"

"What do _you _usually do?" I asked.

"_I_ usually make sure everything in the house is working, lights, boilers, the gas mains, stuff like that." He replied.

I raised an eyebrow, impressed.

"So you're a basically a technician." I summed up.

"If you like" Seth shrugged looking slightly embarrassed. "My mom always said I was handy with my hands."

"Ha!" I laughed. "You're lucky. My mom always said I'd be in the MLBPA" I told him.

"MLBPA?" Seth repeated with a puzzled expression.

"The Major League Baseball Players Association" I clarified.

"Oh" he said clicking his fingers in realisation. "That's cool; I bet your mom's goals for your future have fallen a bit now though huh?" He asked.

"Well yeah" I replied breathing out through my nose, a cross between a scoff and a laugh. "She died two years ago."

Seth's grin fell. "Oh shit man, I'm sorry." He apologised. "Sometimes it's hard to remember how many people died those first few days, I should have thought."

"Nah," I said shrugging him off after a huge gulp of juice. "It's not your fault" I reassured. "What about_ your_ mom?" I asked changing the subject.

"The last I heard, she was somewhere down in Texas." Seth answered. "When most of my village surrendered they split us up amongst different vampires so that we got separated, it was a miracle Jacob, Leah and I got selected to go to the same owners. The _doctor_ was the one who told me he had seen a _'Sue Clearwater' _down that way, but I don't know anymore, anything could have happened by now." He said sadly.

"I know how you feel. My brother and sister are god knows where too" I replied glumly.

Edwards POV 

"Edward." Alice called into the darkness.

"Edward!" she called again even louder.

"What?" I mumbled in annoyance. Couldn't she see I was trying to sleep?

"Get up!" She cried exasperatedly. "Don't make me _slap_ you?" she warned once I didn't move a muscle. "If I hurt my hand trying to get you up, so help me I will-"

She had my attention now and I shot up, remembering the day before.

"Are you ok?" I asked searching her face.

"I'm fine" she shrugged.

"Your hand hurts though right?" I asked. My own one was throbbing with pulses of heat where the nerve endings had been exposed. I despised burns; they were the worst kind of pain for me.

"Well duh!" she laughed. "But we'll live."

"Do you know the time?" I asked her. There were no windows down here so there wasn't an ounce of natural light for me to make a guess of it.

"It's 5.00am" another voice answered and I looked over to see Bella sitting on a stool in the opposite corner of the room pulling her shoes on.

I glared.

"I wasn't talking to you." I said curtly but Alice reached out and tugged at a soft piece of hair at the nape of my neck, _hard_.

"Ow!" I hissed slapping her fingers away.

I _hated _it when she did that.

"Don't be mean." She whispered.

"Why?" I asked in disbelief. "Look what she – _they - _did."

"It wasn't _their_ fault. They _had_ to do it" Alice said.

"Yeah well, when I'm about to scar someone who hasn't done a thing to me, for life, then I'll man-up and tell them _why_ I have to do it before I do." I replied. It was meant in response to Alice's statement but I sent a side way glance towards Bella instead. Her brown eyes held my green ones for a split second before she dropped them to her feet and continued to pull on her shoes silently.

"I know where you're coming from, but I'm not going to hold a grudge about it." Alice sighed. "Its bad enough we're here in the first place, we shouldn't isolate ourselves from the only other humans here."

I shrugged. She just didn't understand, and I was glad when she changed the subject.

"Anyway!" Alice grinned. "What do ya think?" she asked eagerly.

I frowned. "About what?" I asked.

"_Really_?" she moaned.

My blank expression told her that I didn't have a clue what she was going on about.

"My hair!" she huffed. "What do you think about my _hair_?"

"Oh" I said and then did a double-take, actually looking at her. "_Oh!_" I blinked taking in the shorter style. "It's um…_different." _I tried.

She rolled her eyes, muttering something unintelligible, before jumping up, grabbing her stuff and heading towards the bathroom.

I looked around, not knowing what to do. They had said yesterday that we were going to be going upstairs today.

"We'll be going upstairs in about an hour." Liam said as if to answer my thoughts. He was rubbing at his shoes with some kind of black polish, concentrating on them. "You need to go and get changed and something to eat." He said as I stood up, stretching.

"Don't tell me what to do." I said lowly.

"You wanna do your own thing? go ahead." He said in an emotionless tone. "but it wont be me you'll have a problem with later." he finished.

"Yeah because I don't already have a problem with the asshole who pressed a sizzling hot implement into my hand." I countered sarcastically.

Liam dropped his shoes and jumped up. When I first met him, he struck me as decent and quiet but looking at him _now,_ he seemed taller and fiercer, with a harsh countenance.

"You-" He said, getting right up in my face.

He was a couple of inches taller than my 6.2 and looked to be in his mid-30s but I didn't back down, giving him a stony glare.

"- ought to take a leaf out of your sister's book, you're not the only one that doesn't want to be here, you're not the only one that has to live with the knowledge that they are owned ." he shouted, shoving his own scarred hand in my face. "That's why you're so angry isn't it? Because you've been claimed as a possession and the mark proves it, but we've been here longer then you have _runner_, and you _will _do what I tell you to do."

"Liam…" Bella said quietly, but he didn't hear her.

"I given you enough benefit of the doubt." He hissed, making me scoff at him. I walked over to where I had been asleep and reached for the clothes that I had to wear for upstairs where I had placed them next to the bed. I then straightened up and shoved past Liam with my elbow.

"I'd rather be a _runner, _then a _traitor." _I mocked using the word that the rebels and even a few runners used for the _submitants_, before hitting the bathroom door open and stepping inside to get changed.

Alice's POV

After I had pulled on the grey dress and walked back out from the bathroom, I sat down awkwardly on one of the pillows not really knowing what to do until Liam handed me a bowl of something.

"Eat." He said, passing me over a spoon too. "- its porridge and it'll be the only thing you have until dinnertime so I suggest you make the most of it."

The thing I noticed straight away about Liam was that he was very blunt. He didn't beat around the bush and it was kind of comforting. He kinda reminded me of an older version of Emmett.

"Thanks" I said.

The gluey like texture of the stuff wasn't appetising at all, but I had learned to be grateful for everything I could get my hands on so I didn't complain as I chewed each gloopy spoonful.

I'd eaten a lot worse.

"Umm Alice," Bella started. I looked up to find her eyes darting around bashfully. "About yesterday" she whispered. "about me thinking… - About Edward being your-"

"Brother." I said slowly, offering her the word with an amused smile.

"Yeah that." She blushed.

"Don't worry about it." I told her. "I know we don't look anything alike especially for twins so no big deal."

"Your twins!" she exclaimed, looking completely dumbfounded.

_Every single time _I thought unfazed.

"Yeah, but like I said, don't worry about it." I shrugged.

"Really?" She smiled gratefully.

"Yeah" It was clear that she liked Edward even if she didn't fully know it herself yet, I didn't realise that the reason she was being so hostile towards me was because she thought Edward and I were an… _item_. The thought made me cringe and if I had known what she was thinking I would have put an end to that assumption straight away. I was surprised Edward hadn't been the one to realise first, he was the one that was good at reading what people were thinking.

"Although" I continued "I think you_ have_ scarred me mentally, as well as physically, for life" I added trying to make a joke out of what had happened, which must have worked because Bella chuckled in response.

She stopped though, as soon as my brother himself came out of the other bathroom wearing a grey button up shirt accompanied by black trousers. He was carrying his shoes in his hands and came to sit on the pillow next to me, brooding.

I noticed him send Liam an evil look, but Liam didn't so much as squirm under it. I looked between them both, confused.

_Uh oh…_ I thought. _What's up with those two?_

Liam banged a second bowl of porridge in front of Edward but my brother didn't even look at it. He turned to talk to me instead.

"Where's your pump?" he asked.

I shifted uncomfortably.

"It's under my covers." I replied.

"Well give it here, I have a pocket." He said, gesturing to his shirt. "I'll hold it for you."

"We'll they kinda said that I should leave it down here." I answered, glancing towards Sue.

She had told me this morning that it was best if I didn't take it upstairs in case one of the vampires saw it. Apparently these guys didn't like _weaklings, _and in their eyes having asthma made me exactly that..._weak._

"_What?"_ Edward frowned. "And what happens if you work too hard or get scared, or it gets too hot and dusty for you, _huh?_ What happens then?"

"I'll just have to make sure that I take deep breaths." I retorted.

Edward shook his head, clearly fed up.

"This place is a fucking joke." He said too lowly for anyone else to here. "I thought the vampires were bad but the humans are just as worse." He grumbled.

I didn't know why Edward hated them all so much. No matter how many times I told him that it wasn't their fault he would was having none of it. I knew he had trust issues but wasn't that the same for everyone?

Unless…unless he was projecting his anger.

_That's it! _I thought, having a light bulb moment.

Unlike me, Edward was way too smart to show the vampires how much he hated them. He wouldn't give them an opportunity to demean him, but he was angry, _very_ angry and all that anger had to go somewhere, but now Edward had misdirected it at the only beings here that would offer him fair competition.

I was going to have to work on that, the same way I knew he was going to have to work on keeping me from making my snide remarks in front of the vampires. That was something _Emmett _and I had in common.

I thought of how Emmett was getting on, I couldn't imagine my too proud of an older brother taking orders. It just wasn't in his blood to be bossed about.

I looked down at my hand.

_I will have to take the Clingfilm off before going upstairs_. I thought inattentively.

In_ two_ years I had collected_ two_ scars, the one on my neck, and now this one, one caused by vampires and the other by humans. The funny thing was they both burned. I knew the brand would eventually stop burning though, and turn into nothing more than an ugly reminder of how insignificant I was, but I didn't think the burning of the cold scar sitting on the side of my neck would ever stop. Most of the time it was just an annoying sort of tingling pain, but sometimes, especially when I was angry, it felt as if someone was tracing it with a sharp knife over and over, going deeper and deeper until it had me in tears. No one knew how much it hurt, no one, apart from Edward who had sensed it in the same way I knew something bad had happened to his hand before it had even happened to mine. I made him swear not to tell Emmett. If I didn't understand what was wrong with me then Emmett wouldn't ether and I hadn't wanted to bother him.

It didn't really matter now; we might not see each other ever again.

To try and take my mind of off Emmett for a while, I started to un-wrap the plastic bandage, wincing as the cold air brushed against the maimed, flaming skin.

"Hey!" I said looking up as a thought occurred to me. "Who does MC stand for?" I asked, taking in the raw letters.

"It's not _who_ it stands for." Sue replied in her prudent voice. "It's _what_."

I looked at her quizzically.

She struck me as a very ominous woman, _Sue_. She didn't talk much but when she did the words she spoke always found a way to wrap me up in a blanket of coldness. Her coppery skin was worn and tired and you could see stray wires of white streaking through her dark hair that was always platted in a long neat braid.

She had been the one to burn my hand and at first I had hated her for it, but there was just something sad behind her brown, almost black eyes. It made me feel bad for her without even knowing why.

"Ok?" I said when she didn't reply. "_What_ does it stand for?"

"The '_Mexican Coven'_" She replied with a wiry smile, sending her signature cold shiver up my spine yet again.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Emmett's POV 

"Is there anything I can do?" I asked Seth for like the thousandth time as I watched him tinker around with a water pipe that led to a pump on the side of the wall in the back garden.

We had finally come into the main house. At first I was on guard, sure that I'd run into one of the leeches as soon as I stepped across the threshold that connected the human area to the kitchen in the vampires home (I guessed we were allowed to come through their kitchen since they really didn't have much use for it), but so far I had seen none.

"Sorry" Seth said apologetically. "But until one of them gives you instructions, I can't really ask you to do anything. That would actually give me some authority." He muttered.

I was bored.

I didn't want to be ordered about but I wanted to do _something_. It was still humid as I stood outside, leaning up against the side of the house, chatting to Seth. I could see Percy, the garden guy, digging up weeds a few meters away.

The garden itself was magnificent, with a massive fountain in the centre, surrounded decoratively by a range of colourful flowers, trees and plants. It was almost peaceful, _almost._ You could still hear the hustle that was typical of New York in the background, making the garden no more than a really good illusion.

Suddenly, the back door leading out to where we were, creaked open uncertainly and a young girl peered out. She looked frightened and weary as her nervous brown eyes darted around restlessly like a ball in a ping pong machine. I didn't remember seeing her when I had arrived, but having said that, I hadn't been paying much attention and she seemed like a meek little thing anyway, not much taller than Alice, with a sickly face and long dark brown hair.

Her eyes finally came to land on Seth, but not before brushing over me with anxiety first.

"Yo" I whispered to Seth, who was kneeling on the floor with a spanner in his hands. "I think someone is here for you."

"Huh?" he asked, looking up in confusion until he noticed the girl in the door way.

"Oh" he said getting to his feet immediately and rubbing his hands on his trousers. "Hey Bree" he greeted, sending the girl a warm smile.

"H-Hi Seth." She stuttered, only managing a tentative smile in return. "I-I came to um to t-tell you that there's a leak in the on-suite bathroom that Mrs King wants fixing." She explained.

"Sure" Seth replied. "Give me two secs ok, just let me finish up here and I'll be right there." He promised.

Bree nodded slowly before silently disappearing behind the door again.

I waited a couple of seconds before turning to Seth.

"What's up with her?" I asked him with a frown.

Seth looked uncomfortable at the question and maybe even a little pained.

"She's Mr King's _feeder" _he explained solemnly.

"What? You mean he like-" I mimed fangs to the throat.

Seth nodded.

"That's disgusting" I spat. "She can't be any older than what-"

"Sixteen." Seth filled in for me.

"Sixteen" I shook my head, absolutely appalled. Images of Alice filled my mind, looking as frightened and vulnerable as Bree had done, making me want to throw up all the toast I had eaten in the morning.

"What about the _wife_?" I asked venomously. "Who's she _sipping _for lunch?"

The younger boy shrugged.

"No idea. I think she gets hers delivered from a _bloodbank." _He replied.

_Bloodbanks, _I had heard of them before. A lot of humans from the auctions or from the breeding places went to the bloodbanks. They took pints of your blood but not enough to kill you (well too quickly) and then sold them to the vampires who didn't have humans or just couldn't be bothered to look after them properly. It had already occurred to me that Edward and Alice could be at one of those but the thought was so horrendous, I refused to even consider it.

Seth went back to work and some more minutes went by in utter silence before the peace was broken again. At first I heard booming footsteps gradually getting louder; they were coming from the inside of the house.

Seconds later a hard, pitched voice filled my ears.

"Where is he?" it demanded "I paid a good $100,000,000 for that one. I won't have him standing around doing nothing all day."

It took me a matter of Nanoseconds to figure out that the voice was talking about me and I pushed myself off of the wall ready for confrontation.

"Shit, it's _King_" Seth cursed under his breath, jumping up as well. "It's sir" he whispered to me quietly.

"What?" I spat confused.

"Call. Him. Sir." Seth hissed before placing his hands behind his back and dropping his eyes to the floor respectfully.

No sooner had he done that, someone barged through the door, looking like they meant business.

My first impression of the guy was that he was inches shorter than me, wearing a crisp grey suit, he had deep brown hair and a dark handle bar moustache to match. He was the usual pale but his eyes were dark, meaning that he was most probably hungry. The girl, _Bree_, was standing a few paces behind him looking as terrified as a little mouse.

His beady little eyes landed on me and I stared back with the best neutral expression I could muster for a vampire.

"Yes, _you're _him" he snapped.

_Emmett _I wanted to correct but thought better of it.

"You." He saw Seth standing beside me. "Get back to work." He ordered.

"Yes Sir." Seth obeyed immediately, kneeling back to the floor and soon enough the sounds of the bolt he had been tightening with a spanner resumed.

The leech turned to look at me again.

"Move it!" He growled, turning to walk right back into the house. Bree quickly moved to the side, her eyes never leaving the tranquillity of the floor as I forced myself to follow the bastard.

We went back through the house, which looked as impressive on the inside as it had on the out, until he eventually reached a door and pushed it open with the same angry temperament I had seen him use in the garden.

I followed him into the room and nearly choked on clean air at what I saw.

It was like something I had seen in a dream once when I had been about 15, although my sub-consciousness had included a number of scantily clad models but what could I say? 15 was a hormonal time for me.

I was standing in an _indoor garage_. On the opposite side of the room there was a large garage door that I figured opened mechanically and on the wall there were tools and other mechanical equipment, but the best part, the best part _by far_, was all the cars. There had to be more than a dozen cars, all lined up in a neat row, _showroom _style.

There were sports cars; hot hatches… open tops, all of them different colours, shapes, and sizes. Mercedes, BMWs, porches. I thought I was going to topple over and have a heart attack right there.

"You better hope for your sake you're good with cars." The King guy spat.

_And if I wasn't I'd hope for your sake that you could find something else for me to do that was worth the $100,000,000 you spent on me. _I replied internally.

Luckily for the _both _of us I _was_ good with cars, my dad had been a mechanic and in my eyes you weren't a real man if you had no idea about the ins and outs of a car. Cars were to men what purses were to woman, we just went together like salt and pepper.

"You are to make sure_ every _car in this room is impeccable. You clean them when they're dirty, you fix them when they need fixing and you give them a through check-up before and after use. Do you hear me?" He asked. "Someone will inform you when a car is needed and if I see so much as a smudge on that car before anyone gets in it I will have your head on a spike." He threatened.

_This guy is a maniac. _I thought to myself darkly.

"Yes" I replied in a dead tone, careful to keep what I really thought of his uptight ass, out of it.

He continued to stare at me with a menacing look.

"Yes…_sir" _I restated.

"Good." He snapped. "You can start with that one." He informed, pointing to a messed up looking wrangler-style Jeep. It really did look like it had been smashed to pieces and it really wouldn't have surprised me if it had. According to the walky-talky I use to listen to, there were always vampire clashes happening in New York.

"Yes Sir" I repeated.

_Kingie _turned on his heel and stomped out of the room, with Bree, who had remained invisible the whole time so that I nearly forgot about her, scurrying to keep up.

"Where the fuck, do I start." I whispered looking at the jeep apprehensively.

X

I had my sleeves pulled all the way up to my elbows, leaning over the open hood of the jeep to peer at the engine. I had already gotten grease all over my arms and white top while I fiddled with random parts inside to see if anything was still intact.

In short terms, the engine was_ screwed_; in fact the whole thing was practically scrap mental so I would just have to build it all up from scratch, starting with the engine.

Even though the massive tires, doors, interior and everything else needed replacing, the overall frame and structure of the vehicle was the only part of it that actually looked salvageable. That was a relief because it meant that I didn't have to think about ways to repair that before starting to model the new detail around it.

Gradually the day passed me by as I got to work deconstructing the engine talking aimlessly to myself as I did. I wasn't the type of person to dwell on the past, but having to do this reminded me of when I used to stop off at my dad's workshop and he would ask me to give him a hand. I talked because it felt like I was back in Forks again, chatting to him about some stupid little thing as he slid under a car on an old skateboard, checking for a leak in the exhaust pipe.

I would pass him tools and watch with eager fascination as he explained to me what he was doing.

Obviously his old garage wasn't nearly as spectacular as this one but even the feeling of the greasy oil between my fingers held some value, making me feel nostalgic.

"_Humph_" I scoffed as I drained all the fluids from the engine into the catchpan. "My head on a spike huh? I'd shove that spike so far up his ass he-"

"_Excuse_ me!" a voice asked coldly, echoing around the big room like it was a frozen cave instead of a garage. The sound was so sharp that I even_ imagined_ ice crystals falling from the ceiling.

I jumped up, my head hitting the hood as I went. My nose had been stuck under the blessed thing for the whole time I worked on the engine, I had forgotten it was there.

"Shit" I said grabbing the top of my head, as a string of more curses flew from my mouth.

When I eventually dropped my hand to my side and looked up, I had to force myself not to gape at the person standing in the doorway.

She was tall,_ supermodel_ tall, with blond hair flowing to her waist like a river of spun gold. Her face was a marble heart holding plump pink lips, a delicate nose and hooded red eyes, while her body was your typical hourglass, wearing a long, black dress.

I had to blink to make sure that she was real and that I hadn't somehow hit my head too hard and died from the impact to be greeted by an angel.

_What the- Pull yourself together _I thought after a second. _She's a freaking leech, _my mind scolded, shaking me out of the trance quickly.

The woman studied me with a chilly glare, walking a few paces forwards with her hands behind her back and her head held snobbishly high.

"Why are you here?" she commanded loudly. "No one is supposed to be in here"

There were a number of responses that I wanted to spit at her but I made myself go with the politest.

"I was asked to work in here by the..._Mr_ King" I replied emotionlessly.

She didn't look happy.

"And who the hell are you? I've never seen_ you_ here before"

I was just about to answer when the door opened behind her.

"Bree told me you were in he-" Seth started to say as he pushed the door open, but when he saw the woman he closed his mouth immediately. "I'm sorry Lady King." He said tensely "I didn't realise you were here."

_Ah so this is the bastards wife. _I thought absentmindedly.

Seth stood behind her looking at me with eyes as big as saucers and I had to stop myself from falling on the floor at the humour of it. He looked like a cartoon character that had just walked off a cliff in those few seconds it stood in mid-air before falling.

The woman ignored him.

"I asked you a question boy!" She growled at me.

_Boy? ... Boy? _ I didn't know how long this woman had been a vampire but she didn't _look _any older than I did and for her to call me a boy was just plain insulting.

"My name is _Emmett_" I said slowly, working to keep the hostility out of my voice. "I was brought here two days ago from an auction in Washington."

_Anything else? _

"And Royc- My _husband_, asked you to work in here?" She asked.

_Yes God damn it, don't you listen?_

"Yes." I settled for instead.

She seemed to mutter something under her breath, before sending me an irritated look.

"If you so much a put a _dent_ into any one of these cars, _**I'll **_have your head on a spike." She promised, confirming she had heard my rant earlier.

"Yes" I said again like I was a recorder set on repeat, not really knowing or caring what I was responding too.

"You will address me Lady King" she said abruptly.

_Oh give out. _

"Yes" I said through my teeth. "_Lady King" _I made a show of bowing my head too.

_Good enough for you mi' lady, _I thought tauntingly.

She gave me one last spiteful look before disappearing at the speed of light.

"Whoa" Seth breathed out, once we were alone. "I don't think she likes you very much." He laughed.

"Whatever gave you that idea?" I asked sarcastically, running a hand through my oily hair.

"Well come on, you've been down here for 8 hours. Time to skedaddle, we always head back at around 9.00pm"

_Whoa its 9.00pm already? _I thought, shocked.

"Yeah" I replied closing the boot of the car and heading out the door behind him.

I remembered the small conversation I had had with the rest of the humans when I arrived, they were right about one thing so far. _Rosalie King_ _was_ a cold-hearted bitch.

Rosalie's POV 

I sat at my vanity mirror, staring at my perfectly beautiful reflection while I brushed my flowing stream of hair down my back. I took pride in the way it cascaded downwards like a blond waterfall.

I was initially alone but in an instant Royce was behind me, wrapping me in his vice like arms while he trailed kisses down the side of my neck. I looked away from the mirror, not wanting to see what was reflected in it anymore.

"Hello" I said as warmly as I could.

"Hello my love." He replied _happily. _

After a long minute I pried his hands away from hugging me, but didn't let them go, taking them in my own as cautiously as I could and turning to face him.

"You seem in an awfully good mood." I tried carefully.

"Is it strange for a man to show affection to his wife?" He laughed.

_For you? …Yes…_

"No not at all." I smiled.

I stood up, finally letting go of his hands, to fiddle with one of my many perfume bottles instead.

"And what will you be doing today?" I asked peeking up at him.

"Eager to get rid of me my dear?" He asked.

"Of course not" I said quickly, maybe a little _too_ quickly. "I was merely inquiring what my husband would be doing with his time today."

"I was _joking_ Rosalie." Royce chuckled. "You really ought to learn that everything shouldn't be taken so seriously." He chided.

_With you? … I don't think so…_

"Anyway, in reply to your question, I will be quenching my thirst today as well as taking a walk into the city; I have things to discuss with Aro about the ownership of New York." He explained.

_Ah yes..._ I thought. Of course Royce would need to have a say in the dilemma of who would seize New York. He always had to have a say in _everything_.

"Do you really think it's wise to be making propositions with the Volturi?" I asked him. "From what I have heard the Mexican Coven are more likely to force the Volturi into submitting the city over to them. You saw how the "_great" Volturi_ were nearly defeated the other day."

"You know nothing of politics woman." He snapped.

_Of course I don't, the same way I know nothing of cars too. _I thought bitterly.

"The Volturi will not just hand over their territory to a bunch of savages, and even if they did, my plan is to be on the side of whoever I think will win, which I believe I already am." He grinned smugly.

_Is that why they've lost half their land already? _I thought, _and of course you'll be on the side of whoever wins, you're a coward. _

"You're quite right." I said instead. "How thoughtlessly stupid of me"

Royce grunted, not attempting to convince me otherwise as I looked around our luxury golden bedroom trying to find something to keep me occupied.

I thought about taking a bath. I might not have been able to feel the heat of the water properly, but that didn't mean I didn't enjoy the feeling of the water slinking over my body. I found it oddly relaxing and I would do _anything _to be rid of Royce for even the shortest time.

"I'm going to take a bath." I told him, placing the perfume bottle carefully back to its place on the table and making my way over to the large on-suite.

I had only just entered the area and took in the large swimming pool sized tub, and the cabinet full of every bath essential possible, when Royce's piercing voice rang out, echoing around the house like an earthquake.

"BREE!" He screamed.

I closed my eyes. I had asked him specifically not to do _that_ in here. He may have enjoyed the torture he inflicted but I didn't.

All too soon there was a knock on the door and when Royce asked the person to enter I heard the weary footsteps of Royce's _feeder_ walking into the room.

"Come here!" he growled at her. I could hear her sharp, little, hurried breaths as she slowly moved forwards.

I acted quickly. I knew I couldn't possibly stop it but I wanted nothing at all to do with what he chose to do to that poor girl. I would play no part in it. Hurrying forwards, I knelt down and clasped the water pipe in my hands, squeezing it quietly until it ruptured and started to leak.

I then rushed out of the bathroom, just as Royce was leaning into the girl's throat. "The pipes leaking!" I exclaimed. "You!" I pointed to the young girl, "Go and get the boy who fixes these things. _Now._" I commanded with authority.

Royce pushed the girl away unhappily, and she looked up at me with pink watery eyes. She was a scrawny little thing, nothing more than skin, bones and the small amount of blood she had left. I knew she wouldn't last much longer.

"Ye-yes Lady King" she squeaked, scurrying from the room, like it was on fire.

Royce whirled on me, _hungry_ eyes blazing. "I _know_ you did that on purpose. Do you think I'm an idiot?" he asked furiously, walking towards me.

"No"

_Yes_

Suddenly he was in front of me, quick as lightening.

"You're a liar." He spat.

"No I'm not."

"_Yes_, yes you are" he disagreed. "But that's ok, _idiots_ will always be better than_ liars_ in my book." His hand shot out, connecting with the side of my face, forcing my head to the side. "Don't you _ever_ prevent me from getting what I want again do you hear me?" he asked. "_Ever_"

"Yes Royce." I obeyed indifferently.

"You should be thankful I put up with a _liar_ like you." He spat at me. "If you weren't just so god damn attractive I would have ripped you apart and burnt all the pieces years ago." He threatened.

He brought his hand up again and I flinched slightly only to hear him laugh when all he did was caress my face with his thumb.

I hated the terrified reactions my body gave him.

"I'll see you later." He said before turning and leaving the room.

I stood their staring after him. I hated him with every fibre of my being. If he were to die at the hands of _anyone, anyone at all, _I would feel nothing whatsoever.

X

After a while the boy I had asked for, came up to fix the pipe, working on it quietly, while I stared in my mirror. When he went I took a long calming soak before putting on a black dress, brushing my hair dry again and walking out of the room. Royce had left now. I couldn't sense him anymore which meant I could go to where I always went when I was free of him, to my garage.

I didn't know how I ever convinced him to buy half the cars that we owned, but I had and working on them was like a release for me. When I got stuck into the engine of a car it was like I was on a different planet, a Royce free planet.

It was exhilarating.

He hated it of course, like he hated everything I did, Playing around with cars wasn't a hobby _befitting_ of a lady, but he couldn't stop me. Well that's what I had thought.

At the very moment I reached the door to my sanctuary, I knew someone was inside. I opened it carefully and slipped in. My hearing located the source of a heartbeat and I looked in the direction of where I knew the ruined jeep-wrangler was sitting.

That particular vehicle had been destroyed during the big fight between the Volturi and the Mexican coven a couple of days ago. I had been planning to fix it but now, as I focused in on the big car, I noticed someone leaning over its hood.

All I could see at first were a pair of legs. The person was doing something to the engine and I folded my hands over my chest angrily. I couldn't identify which one of the servants it was but I didn't care.

_Who gave this person permission to be in here? _I thought, absolutely livid. I was just about to stomp over to them and demand an explanation when the person in question started talking to himself.

His voice was gruff and deep and I took a moment to listen, surprised at how thick and masculine it sounded. It wasn't familiar.

"Humph" it scoffed. "My head on a spike huh? I'd shove that spike so far up his ass he-"

My eyes widened. "_Excuse_ me!" I heard myself saying before I could even stop myself. He had the mouth of a sailor.

The figure jumped up. He must have forgotten the hood was above him because he smacked his head straight into it.

"Shit!" he hissed, grabbing his head. "Fucking piece of-" he continued to swear.

Eventually he finished and when he did, he brought his head up to look in my direction. His eyes immediately widened, but that wasn't a surprise, I had that effect on basically every human male and most of the vampire ones too.

I took him in walking forwards a little. He was very large, about 6.5, wearing black slacks and a white polo shirt, or at least it had been white before he'd gotten it covered in the brown oil from the engine. His hands were fists by his side and the long sleeves of the shirt were rolled up to reveal bulging biceps that were also smeared with oil. Lastly I went to his face. His jaw and lips were well defined and he had a strong straight nose. His eyes were sea green, almost grey and his head was covered in slight black curls.

I didn't recognise him at all.

"Why are you here?" I asked. "No one is supposed to be in here."

I liked working on my cars alone. I forbade _anyone _from coming in here. It was _my_ sanctuary.

"I was asked to work in here by the- _Mr_ King" He replied systematically, like he had thought about his response before answering.

As soon as he had said the words I wanted to break something. Royce just wasn't happy until he had me begging at his feet. He knew I preferred my own company to his so now he had taken the only place where I could truly be alone and had given the responsibility of it to this…this _human_.

"And who the hell are you? I've never seen_ you_ here before." I demanded.

He opened his mouth, but before he could answer the door behind me opened. I had been so wrapped up in what was happening that I didn't even hear someone else approach.

"Bree told me you were in he-" I recognised the voice of the boy who had come to fix the pipe in my bathroom. "I'm sorry Lady King." He apologised when he saw me standing there "I didn't realise you were here."

I would have answered that but I was still too fixated on the one in front of me.

"I asked you a question boy!" I growled.

I knew I had struck a nerve, his eyes narrowed and he looked angry but he managed to keep his composure all the same.

"My name is _Emmett_" He said slowly. "I was brought here two days ago from an auction in Washington."

_A runner _I thought shocked, but it explained the fact that he wouldn't address me properly. I wasn't even aware that Royce had been to an auction let alone brought this human from one.

"And Royc-" I backtracked; Royce was always telling me to let people know we were married but I suppose that was better then calling him my _mate_. "My _husband_ asked you to work in here?" I asked for clarity.

"Yes." He repeated. I could tell he was annoyed but I was even more so.

"You bastard" I spat to an un-present Royce under my breath.

I gave the boy an agitated look.

"If you so much a put a _dent_ into any one of these cars, _**I'll **_have your head on a spike." I assured him, remembering his rambling.

"Yes" he said again as a thought came to me.

"You will address me as Lady King" I instructed sharply.

"Yes" he said through gritted teeth. "_Lady King" _He then bowed his head scornfully.

I was shocked to feel my lip twitch upwards the tiniest bit at his bold response and with one last smouldering look I vanished from his sight.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

**Oh just so you know the humans can usually talk in private because most of the time the vampires can't be bothered to keep tabs of them.**

Alice's POV

"Just follow me" Bella instructed as Edward and I started to walk quietly behind her.

We had just emerged from our little room at the bottom of the stairs. All the others had gone their separate ways until Bella, Edward and I were the only three left.

"Where are we going?" I asked as she led us up the spiral stair case.

"We need to find one of the vampires so that they can tell you what to do" she explained.

"Can't we just do what you do and hope no one notices?" I pleaded. I really wasn't in the mood to face any vampires today. My hand was still hurting badly and I just didn't feel like talking to those arrogant..._beings._

"It doesn't work that way." Bella replied.

"Why can't the guy that freaking brought us come and tell us what he wants us to do" Edward mumbled. "Why do we have to make an effort, as if we care?"

"Oh" Bella said. "_Who _brought you? What'd he look like?"

"Well we didn't exactly see his_ face." _I replied. "But I_ think _he had a southern accent."

Bella and Edward both turned to look at me with '_What the hell' _expressions.

"Alice we're in Texas." Bella said slowly. "Half the people _here_ have southern accents."

_Oh…_

"Well you don't." I pointed out. "And Liam and Siobhan definitely haven't. You can't expect me to remember I'm in Texas when I'm living in a dark basement with people who don't even sound Texan." I explained, making Bella laugh.

"True…" She agreed before hushing down. "You might wanna keep quiet from now on; most of the vamps hang out up here and they don't like it when they can hear us." She explained when we reached the second floor.

I nodded.

Once we walked away from the stairs we were thrown into a long hallway with doors on either side, kinda like a hotel. We hadn't been walking through the maze like corridors for long when someone turned the corner in front of us.

_Oh great! _I thought seeing the same pale blond head I had seen the other day heading straight towards us.

"What are you three doing up here?" Charlotte asked cheerlessly when she noticed us.

"We've come to ask what you want Edward and Alice to do ma'am" Bella answered politely.

Charlotte looked thoughtful for a second, tilting her head to the side quizzically before speaking.

"Come with me." She ordered, turning back the way she had come.

The three of us hurried along to keep up with her and I was grateful to Bella for choosing to stay with us instead of leaving us to face wherever and whatever we were being taken too alone.

Charlotte led us to a door and knocked on the hard oak three times.

Although I didn't hear anything, there must have been a response from inside because after a moment she pushed the door forwards, stepped inside and held it open for us.

"Well move then!" she snapped when we hadn't.

Edward took it upon himself to march into the room first while Bella and I trailed after him.

The room we stepped into was huge.

On the wall opposite us there was a massive wooden shelf holding millions of multi-coloured books and records. In front of that there was a large timber desk. It had an old, delectably designed, globe sitting on top of it and a warn map spread out across the surface. Several books were discarded and laying open at specific pages across it too.

The room was dark and musky smelling, sort of like leather and sawdust and for some odd reason it reminded me of the captain of a pirate ships _cabin_, all shadows and sinister secrets.

A clock ticked loudly on one of the walls, the sound echoing around the room like it was counting down to our doom.

"These are the two humans Peter and I were telling you about." Charlotte said once she closed the door behind us, at first I didn't have a clue who she was talking to, but when I looked towards the desk again a shape emerged from the shadows of the bookcase. The person had been sitting on the recliner behind the desk the whole time, and when they leaned forwards I could see them more clearly.

The figure was a woman; her lips were painted a ruby red to match her eyes and there was a slight olive tone to her pale skin, making me assume that she was of a foreign descendant. Her wavy hair was piled on top of her head like a brunette crown.

She lifted herself up from the chair with the grace of a thousand queens and walked elegantly around the desk to lean casually on the front of it. I noticed that she was wearing a crimson dress accompanied by black peep toes, and that I could practically look at her face without having to look up much for once. Her almond shaped eyes swept over us with partial interest.

"How strange" she hummed in a soft Spanish accent.

_Here we go again, _I thought.

What was so _strange_?

Everything about me and Edward being here was turning into some kind of weird, complicated, mystery.

Why had we been brought?

Who had we been brought by?

Why did everyone seemed so shocked at our arrival here? Although that question had already been resolved by the fact we were runners. But still,

Why were we the _only_ runners here?

This place and everything in it was starting to really unnerve me and I didn't make the best decisions when I was scared.

"What's your name boy?" The woman asked pushing herself off the desk to make her way slowly over to my brother until she was standing directly in front of him, so close that their torsos were almost touching.

I could tell her self-awareness was making my brother uncomfortable as he shifted on his feet like the floor was burning through the soles of his shoes.

"Come on. I don't _bite_." She purred seductively, flashing her gleaming teeth at him. "Well not right away anyway. All I want to know is your name sweet one."

Edward must have taken that for a threat.

"Edward" He replied trying to keep his voice toneless. The woman smiled, staring at him with unblinking eyes for a moment, studying him, before her head turned in my direction and she moved to stand in front of me.

"And yours?"

"Alice." I responded sharply.

"They're related Maria." Charlotte commented from the side lines.

"I thought as much" _Maria _smiled lazily. "_Siblings, _I would imagine, How old are you?" She questioned.

She didn't really aim the query at me or Edward so we replied together.

"18" We chorused.

Marias eyebrows rose into her hairline. "_Twins?_ Now _that's _a surprise. What an odd pair, they're _mismatched_." She laughed.

_Yup I've heard it all before lady _I thought with an imaginary eye roll.

"And you're _sure_ … the _major_ …brought them?" She asked Charlotte with a quirk of her perfectly shaped eyebrow.

"Yes" Charlotte replied sounding just as annoyed as she had done at the door the other day. "He is the only one apart from you, Nettie and Lucy to have access to the accounts and the only one who hasn't returned from Newyork, he must have taken a detour to Washington where these two came from.

Maria seemed to smile to herself for a long while, before turning to look at Bella.

"Isabella? Am I correct?" She asked pointing a manicured finger at her.

"Yes ma'am" Bella nodded.

"I want you to take charge of these two, think of them as your trainees." She said, before reaching out to take Edwards hand. She flipped it over and was delighted to see the burn. "Good!" she exclaimed, smiling widely at Bella. "I see you know your responsibilities."

"Yes ma'am." Bella repeated, dropping her head.

"I really don't think we should keep them here Maria." Charlotte started. "For starters they were runners and we really have no idea why they were brought. We should just send them somewhere else before _he-" _She spat the word angrily. "-decides to show his face around here again."

"_Oh_… I know why they were brought." Maria mused, turning her blazing gaze on me again. She reached out a slender hand to brush her icy fingers across my cheek. "You are very _pretty_…for a _human_." She murmured.

I could feel my features turning into a frown but I forced them to stay smooth and composed. I did however, move my cheek swiftly away from her hand, which she closed and dropped to her side with a small amused chuckle.

"Shame the same can't be said for her attitude." Charlotte commented.

"_Ah…_" the other vampire responded gently. "But there is no fun in breaking a mare if she is _not_ free-spirited at first." Maria remarked still staring at me.

There was no way I was going to keep my mouth shut to that.

"The difference is I'm not a horse" I heard myself saying before I could even think about what was coming out of my mouth or any possible repercussions. "And I will not _let_ _you _break me."

"_Alice!" _Edward hissed, yanking my arm.

I turned to him, he looked pissed and Bella was leaning out beside him looking as wide-eyed as a barn owl, her mouth in the shape of a small _"O"_.

"What? It's true" I shrugged.

"Do you see what I mean?" Charlotte exclaimed.

Maria let out a hearty laugh.

"I like you." She said to me, eyes bright with glee. "But I'm afraid I won't be the one holding the whip. You see, my major did like a challenge my friend, and I have no doubt you'll give him one."

I had no response to that as she turned around and headed back towards her desk.

_Major? _I thought. _What the - _

"Leave." Maria said snapping me away from my thoughts. She was waving a hand at us in a shooing motion.

"Maria I really think-" Charlotte began.

"You are not here to think for me Charlotte." Maria spat. Her Spanish accent suddenly sounding a lot thicker and fiercer. "I said go… _now_!"

X

Bella, Edward and I hurried down the hall and flew down the stairs as fast as we could.

"Well _that _was weird." I breathed when we were safely in the entrance hall again.

"I _cannot _believe you answered her back like that!" Bella said looking astonished. "I thought she was going to flip out for sure."

"Believe it!" Edward growled. "Are you insane?" He asked looking at me with the anger evident in his face. "You know what? Don't answer that, I already know."

"At least I'm not a coward." I spat at him.

"If being a coward means I have some sense up here." He said tapping his head. "Then fuck it, I am such a coward."

"Did you not hear about the horse and the breaking it part?" I asked him. "Because in case you didn't understand, that was a metaphor for _me…_or do you just not care."

"Of course I care!" He bellowed. "Alice the only usable weapon we have against these vampires is our minds. If we can't beat them physically then we have to do it mentally. How are we supposed to do that if you can't keep your trap shut long enough for them to start underestimating us? I don't even think Emmett would be acting as reckless as you are at this point."

I glared at him and turned to Bella who looked uncomfortable in the presence of our spat.

"Who was she?" I asked as Edward huffed behind me, he knew I was going to start ignoring him now.

"Maria Alvarez, leader of the Mexican coven." She replied.

"She's a psychopath." Edward muttered.

"Yes, which is why I will ask you to _please_ call her and any other vampire you see here ma'am or sir. If you don't it's all coming back to _me_." She seemed nervous as she looked in my direction in particular.

I suddenly felt bad for her.

"Don't worry. I'll be good." I promised, rolling my eyes. "So what do we do now?"

"Well there's a big bit at the back of the mansion that needs repainting. I was planning to do that today and three pairs of hands are much better than one." She shrugged.

Edward snorted.

"The last time _Alice_ helped to decorate something, mom had to wipe her down with white spirit to get the paint off." He chuckled.

I couldn't help the small smile my lips formed into at the memory. We had been 10.

"Well you try painting properly when you have Emmett flicking stuff at you." I mumbled to no one in particular, still refusing to talk to Edward directly.

"I _was_ painting properly with Emmett flicking stuff at me." Edward retorted.

"Emmett?" Bella asked as she led us out of the front door and we followed her round the side of the mansion so that we could start walking to where we needed to go. It looked like a long walk but I wasn't expecting any different judging by the size of the household.

It was still hot but at least we had the right clothes for it this time.

"He's our older brother." I explained.

"Oh" Bella nodded. "How comes he's not here with you guys then, since you two were allowed to stay together?"

"He was sold before us." I murmured sadly, remembering the way he had been dragged out of the hall. "Not before threatening the auction owner by saying he would go on strike if we were not sold together and that he'd find out if we weren't too." I laughed.

Bella smiled. "Sounds brave."

"That's Emmett" I murmured.

"What about your Mom… Dad?" Bella asked.

"Dead" I shrugged after a brief pause.

"I'm sorry." Bella apologised. "Mine too."

"Sucks huh?" I smiled.

"Yeah" She agreed glumly.

We finally reached the back of the house and I noticed that she was right, there was a whole part of brick wall that did need repainting. It wasn't the _whole _back of the property (and if it was that would be taking the piss). It was all cordoned into different sections, some bits going further back than others, but from what I could see this section of it was just a dump. The brilliant white we had seen at the front of the house had turned sad and dull and the grass surrounding it was tall, sharp-looking and yellow. There was a beaten up looking shed in the corner of the section and a dying tree next to that, probably not getting enough sun due to the proximity of the house.

Overall, it was a sad looking place, sad and forgotten.

"There are brushes, paint and a step ladder in the shed over there" Bella pointed, "as you can see we need to get this whole wall. It might take us about two to three days but that's better then what it would have taken me to do alone." She commented. "I've been working my up for about year and this is the last bit"

"Well I'll go and get what we need." Edward shrugged. "If Alice goes I don't think she'd be able to find her way back out of the grass again." he snorted.

"You're hilarious!" I snapped.

"Knew I could get you to talk to me" He winked, turning towards the shed.

I groaned. It didn't matter how much I was angry at him, he always managed to get me to talk to him no matter how much I tried not to.

X

I was sitting on the back of my legs on the shorter bits of grass by the wall, swishing the white coated brush back and forth. My arms were already covered with the paint and so were the tips of my knees to Edwards's amusement.

I was working along the bottom. Bella was stood up, painting as far as she could reach and Edward was standing on the step ladder, taking care of the top. At first I didn't see why Bella said it would take us two to three days but as soon as we started I realised the rough bricks would need at least a few coats until they were completely white.

"Alice you do realise painting involves covering the whole wall. You can't just stick to the same spot." Edward commented, looking down at me.

I looked up, wincing at the glare from the sun as I shielded my eyes with the hand the paint brush was in.

"I do know what I'm doing you know." I said curtly, as my hand wobbled and the paintbrush slid across my forehead.

I closed my eyes

_Fuck_

Even Bella started giggling and Edward nearly fell off the ladder because he started laughing so hard. I wasn't clumsy or anything, paint and I just didn't go well together.

"Clearly" Edward wheezed as I tried to wipe the white streak from my forehead.

"You can laugh." I mumbled.

Do you two _enjoy_ winding each other up?" Bella asked.

"Edward_ lives_ to wind me up." I replied.

I saw Edwards mouth open but I beat him to the punch before he had a chance to pronounce the first syllable.

"If you say one word about me being younger then you I will come up there and tip this paint tin over your head. You know I will, I don't care how much trouble I will get in." I warned as Edward closed his mouth and Bella began to laugh again.

We continued to paint in silence for a while until a couple of questions filled my head that I wanted the answers to. They were bugging me so I started with the one that scared me the_ least_.

"Bella?" I called up from my spot on the ground.

"Yes Alice?" she responded.

I winced, knowing Edward wouldn't like this one bit, but it wasn't like we had any privacy anyway and I would rather ask her here then when we were in a room filled with a whole group of older boys and also where the vamps could _easily_ here us if they wanted to.

"What do we do when…you know… it's _that_ time?" I asked, hoping she'd already know what I was on about.

"What time?" She asked looking down at me with her eyebrows furrowed.

I sent her _the look_. That one you gave when it meant something was obvious but you didn't want to say it aloud.

"You know…" I encouraged.

She shook her head bewilderedly.

_What? _She mouthed, while I did a funny little fluttering motion with my hands, it wasn't like it was hard to work out. I didn't realise Bella was so slow. She didn't exactly look stupid but _come on_…

"Just spit it out Alice!" Edward called from the top. He wasn't looking down and seemed to be concentrating on the part of the wall he was painting but he was listening.

_You asked for it._

I sighed and rolled my eyes. This wasn't my fault. It was something I never had to think about as a runner, and I had taken care of that particular aspect of my life alone quite happily, but being here the thought of it made me feel uncomfortable and I'd rather deal with it now then having to figure something out when the time came.

"What do we do when it's _that _time of the month?" I asked as quickly and as bluntly as I could.

For a couple of seconds no one said anything and I was starting to think that maybe they didn't hear me or didn't understand the question when…

"_Alice!" _Edward and Bella groaned together.

_Ha! I thought it was only me and Edward that did that._

I looked up sheepishly to find Bella blushing as red as a beetroot and Edward clutching at his head in his hands like I had kicked his brain or something.

"Don't you _"Alice!"_ me." I commanded. "It's a perfectly relevant question."

"It's-" Edward started but I cut him off.

"You're not a girl Edward. You don't have to worry about them knowing your freaking bleeding _down there_ every month."

"Oh God" Bella was muttering over and over.

"Please just answer?" I begged her. This was embarrassing enough for me too.

"Can't you ask-?"

"No!" I hissed. "Someone will hear if I ask later and they're all way older than me, it's embarrassing." I whined.

"What about me?" Edward grumbled.

"You don't count! So shut up and carry on painting. Its not my fault Bella doesn't know an obvious question when she sees one." I snapped.

"You can't tell me you weren't curious at first?" I said to Bella.

"fine!" Bella exclaimed "if I answer then will you please never ask me anything this cringe-worthy ever again?" she asked sending a mortified look in Edwards's direction.

"Cross my heart" I promised.

Bella sighed. "It's less appealing to them because it's kinda dead already if you know what I mean." She explained keeping the word _blood_ out of it. "Just keep your head down and pretend nothings up and they'll pretty much do the same." She flushed.

Her explanation didn't make me feel a lot better but at least it sort of made sense.

"I have another question." I said.

Edward let out another groan while Bella shook her head.

"You promised!" she moaned.

"No it's nothing like that." I assured.

Bella looked relieved.

"Go on then." she allowed warily.

"Who's '_The Major_'" I asked recalling our time with Maria. According to her and Charlotte this _major _had been the one to buy us and they made it sound as if we had a reason to be scared of him.

Bella froze and this time even Edward looked interested in finding out the answer.

"Uh- I – I shouldn't say…" Bella stuttered, refusing to look at us and giving all her attention to the wall.

"Why not?" I asked blinking. That didn't sound too promising. "It's not even _cringe-worthy." _ I reminded her.

"I - it's just – _he's_ just – no one" She settled with.

_No one my ass_

I frowned. "Bella, why won't you just tell us? We're going find out anyway."

"Because it will just freak you out" She huffed.

"Newsflash Bella! I'm already freaked out. I'm freaked out because someone brought us for $50,000 when no one else was willing to pay 10, I'm freaked out because we're the only newbies here since you all surrendered two years ago, I'm freaked out by what that Maria lady was saying and most of all, I'm freaked out about your reaction to a simple question, so saying you don't want to _freak me out_ is bullshit!" I cried, jumping to my feet.

Bella wouldn't turn around to look at me and continued to focus on what she was doing.

I huffed, running a hand through my hair in total agitation.

"Please Bella." Edward said suddenly but softly, forgetting his anger at her. "We have a right to know." He pleaded, climbing down the ladder to stand beside me.

Finally, Bella turned around to face us. She searched Edwards's eyes for a few moments before looking at us both.

She sighed.

"Fine" She huffed again. "Just don't blame me if you don't like what you hear.

"We won't" I promised.

"He's Marias second-in-command kinda like her deputy lieutenant. She explained. "He's also her _mate_."

'_Mate'_ I remembered Emmett telling us he heard that was when two vampires were bonded together, sort of like husband and wife (or whoever they were into) without the actual _love _part,

'_Leeches with benefits_' or at least that was how my older brother put it.

"So what, this is like an army?" I asked referring to the _second in command, lieutenant _thing.

"Yeah, you can call it that." Bella responded.

"Don't you need solders for an army?" Edward asked.

"All those rooms upstairs" Bella stated. "What do you think they're used for?"

"They're for _vampires?_" I asked in disbelief. "- but there were _loads _of them"

"An army" Edward commented.

"Don't worry. They don't come out a lot except for training…or food" Bella reassured, although it really_ didn't_ reassure me very much especially the_ food_ part.

"Oh my God" I whispered. "Charlotte said that most of them have just come back from New York right? Please don't tell me that we are living with the group who have just started overthrowing the Volturi, the _unknown alliance_?" I pleaded.

Bella didn't even have to say anything; it was all in her face.

"Oh my God" I repeated.

"This is fucked up." Edward commented, holding the bridge of his noes between two of his fingers.

"I told you I didn't want to freak you out!" Bella whined. "And how did you know about the Volturi and the Mexican coven?" she asked.

"We had a walky-talky." Edward answered.

"The rebels use them to distribute information." I explained.

"Don't mention anything about rebels around here." Bella warned, looking around nervously.

This was just getting better and better. Not only were we caught but we were in the possession of the very vampires I remember thinking I _didn't_ want to run into.

"So anyway, about this major" I said, steering us back to the main topic.

"His name is _Jasper_" Bella told us. "- I've heard some of the other vamps say that he is one of the most feared vampire in the whole of America…" She explained. "I know he scares the hell out of me and even Liam won't dare cross his path." She started to shudder just thinking about him." He has a fierce temper and _hates_ humans, which is why-"

"Everyone is so shocked that we're here." Edward finished for her.

"Yeah…" she mumbled.

Just this guy's name made my skin erupt in goose bumps and my heartbeat become uneven.

I didn't know this vampire and from the sound of things I definitely didn't _want_ to know this vampire. I just had to hope that he _didn't_ '_decide to show his face here again'_, well until Edward and I had devised a plan of escape and were long gone. After that I didn't really care what this _major _did.

**_Haha... So f_or some reason a friend of mine _hates_ the fact that Bella never acknowledged the whole menstrual cycle thing with Edward in Twilight (seriously it really creeps her out) so I decided to humour her. (you know who you are ;D) It actually kinda makes sense when you think about it, I must admit. **


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

**This is pretty much a Bella/Edward chapter but don't worry its relevant to Alice too. This just needed to happen. **

Edwards POV 

I woke up with a start as something hit me…_hard _

It took my eyes a few minutes to adjust to the darkness but when they did, I realised Alice's arm was flung out across my face and she was mumbling incoherently to herself.

I groaned.

"Alice" I hissed not wanting to wake anyone else up.

It was our second night here after the long day of painting we had, had. All the others were dead to the world apart from me and my fidgety twin.

"Alice?" I tried again half-heartedly. I didn't_ really_ want to have to wake her up but I didn't want to lay here unable to do sleep for the rest of night either.

Alice hadn't always been a restless sleeper. It was something that she'd picked up over the last two years and something that I really couldn't blame her for. I knew the scar on her neck bothered her endlessly and that she was prone to nightmares.

Finally, but thankfully, she tossed onto her other side and flung her arm in a new direction.

I was just about to turn the opposite way when something stopped me.

"Ow!" someone gasped sleepily. "What the hell?"

"_Bella_?" I whispered.

As soon as I called her name it went quiet making me start to think I might have imagined Bella's voice. However, while I was preparing to go back to sleep the silence was broken _again_.

"Does your sister hit people in her sleep a lot?" Bella murmured. Her voice was muffled.

I had not realised that Bella slept so close to us. When Alice turned on her other side she must have hit the other girl and woke her up too.

"Only people she doesn't like." I quipped quietly, after a moment.

"She must hit _you _a lot then." Bella replied, no doubt referring to the argument Alice and I had the previous morning.

I scoffed quietly as it went silent once more, and laid there staring into the darkness for about a minute more before sighing. I was wide awake now with no momentum to fall asleep again.

"I'm sorry, that was stupid." Bella whispered, thinking the sigh meant I was annoyed at her.

"Don't worry" I shrugged even though she couldn't see me.

"Do you…do you want a cup of tea?" She asked wearily after _another_ minute. "It's just I can't go back to sleep and I was… just …wondering." She explained.

"Won't the others hear the water boiling?" I asked despite myself.

"Nah" I could hear her smile. "We can virtually sleep through everything; we work so hard during the days"

"Everything apart from _Alice_" I joked. "Are we talking tea, tea?"

"If you're referring to English tea, then yes, I find it relaxing and its one of the only hot drinks they let us buy. Look I was just asking-"

"I'll take a cup." I shrugged sitting up again.

"You will?"

"Yeah" I confirmed. "Why not"

It had become a lot easier to see now and I watched as Bella lifted herself up and carefully tried to make her way over to the_ 'kitchen' _part of the room. She stumbled a few times but eventually she got to the small cupboard and fridge that held all of their..._our_ food.

After she was safely over there I started to follow in her footsteps, taking care not to trip over anyone as I went. I reached a pillow by the stove and dumped myself onto it heavily. Bella filled a pan up with water from a small sink in the corner before she placed it on top of the stove that she had turned on. She then opened another cupboard and brought out two chipped cups. She dropped the two teabags she had taken from the first cupboard into them and then came to sit beside me on another pillow.

We sat there in silence, watching the water start to simmer.

As the water grew hotter, I grew guiltier until I just couldn't stand it anymore.

"Look" I sighed awkwardly. "I want to apologise for how I acted before. I was angry, and I took it out on you. It's clear that _that_ Maria cow is a nasty piece of work so… I'm sorry" I made myself say.

I risked a glance in her direction. She looked more taken aback if anything.

Bella didn't say a word until the water started to boil and she reached to take the pan off of the heat.

"I don't accept your apology" she murmured.

"What?" I asked on the verge of being offended.

"You had every right to be angry. Alice explained that you both would have gone with it if we'd just explained, that you wouldn't have let us get into trouble for you."

I nodded. "She was right, but I suppose you were all just… _scared_" I shrugged, trying to see it the way Alice did.

Bella poured the water into the two cups and then stood up again to go and get the carton of milk from the fridge; she brought it back and poured milk into the cups too.

"You're gonna have to fish the teabag out with your fingers." She explained handing me the cup.

"Thanks" I replied, careful not to touch the side of the mug with my right hand.

"I _was _scared" she said after a moment. "I hate this place." She glared "and I hate that I had to hurt you and Alice just because I was scared of what they would have done to me if I hadn't." she admitted.

I stared at her, not knowing what to say.

"Uh-" I started, but I didn't have a chance to say anything else, let alone enough time to think of something to say.

"Your sister" she went on. "The way she spoke to Maria, it was like she couldn't care less what they did to her. How can someone be that…that_ brave_ when I can't even speak to them without shaking." She sniffed.

"I love my sister." I started. "But when she talks to the vamps that way, that isn't her being brave, that's her being scared and thoughtless. You said it yourself, you thought Maria was going to flip out, and what would have happened if she had. Alice would be dead and speaking her mind would have gotten her nowhere."

"But still!" Bella hissed. "I didn't have the guts to run did I? Not like you. I surrendered and came straight here. I was too scared to even think about running. I should have ran and refused to give into them." Her voice broke out into a sob.

"Um" I said running a hand through my hair.

_How do you deal with emotional women? _I thought. I looked in the direction of my sleeping sister _Channel Alice. _I commanded myself, _what would she say? _

"How old are you?" I asked.

Bella blinked. "19… why?"

"You know in the first couple of months after _they_ came, Emmett, Alice and I didn't know what to do or were to go. Emmett was determined not to surrender so we ended up sleeping in dark alleyways and muddy ditches to try and stay concealed. Once, we were in this ditch, somewhere in Tennessee, I think it was, we were all asleep but it wasn't long until Alice woke us up in a panic. She said she could hear something in the trees above the trench so Emmett went to investigate. When we heard him start to scream, we were sure a vampire had found us, but when we peered up over the ditch we discovered that it wasn't a vampire… but a bear. It was attacking Emmett with claws as big as knifes and was easily the largest bear we had ever seen. Emmett was screaming at us to run from under the bear but I jumped out of the ditch instead and started to throw heavy rocks at the animal to try and scare it off. It didn't work of course, and only diverted its attention to where I was instead. The bear started to stalk towards me until we were nearly nose to nose. I was sure it was going to swipe my head off with its massive paw but suddenly a loud shot rang out and the bear fell to the floor, dead."

"Who shot it?" Bella asked intrigued.

"A guy named Stefan" I replied. "He was about 40 years old and had made his home in the forest. He happened upon us when he was out hunting deer with his dog Vladimir, and heard Emmett's screams-"

"What happened to your brother?" Bella asked hurriedly.

_I'm getting there. _I thought with a tinge of amusement.

"Emmett took a bad wound to the stomach and he still has the claw scars to prove it." I explained. "Stefan asked us to help him carry our brother to his cabin in the woods were he would be able to help him. At first I didn't trust the guy, but Alice insisted that we needed to get Emmett to a safe place to stop the bleeding, so I reluctantly agreed. When we got there we helped Stefan clean and stitch my brother up. Em got a fever but after a few days it broke and he started to get better until eventually he woke up. We learned that Stefan used to be a hunter in the Tennessee Mountains, and we started to trust him more and more until he eventually became somewhat of a father figure to us. We had a safe place to stay; we had food, a water source… Things started to get better; the vampires didn't think to check the forests for humans so we were basically free. One day Stefan wasn't feeling well so Emmett went out to try and find food with another of Stefan's guns instead, while Alice and I went out to collect firewood and berries. Again, Alice heard a disturbance in the trees so we ducked under some bushes to hide, with the cabin still in view. This time the beast we saw _was _a vampire and it was heading straight towards the cabin. It must have been a coincidence because the vampire was alone; her eyes were red so we knew she wasn't there to feed so I guessed she was just wandering when she came across the cabin. I knew instantly that if she discovered us she would alert others and they would take us straight to one of the warehouses, so I stayed behind the bushes, hidden with Alice. Stefan taught us this bird-whistle for if we ever saw a vampire nearby so I made the sound in the hope he would hear it and get the hell out of there. Next thing I knew, he was walking out of his cabin with his gun in his hand and Vladimir by his side. He exchanged a bunch of unheard words with the vampire before placing the barrel of the hunting gun under his chin and blowing his brains out." I said lowly.

Bella gasped.

I paused, remembering the echo of the gun shot and the spray of red it had produced.

"W-why would he do that?" Bella asked.

"Emmett and I thought it was because he would rather be dead then become a slave to the vampires." I answered, making Bella give a slow almost shamed nod. "But Alice, Alice didn't think so." I went on.

"Really, what did Alice think?" Bella questioned.

"Alice thought it was because he was too scared at the thought of having to go and live amongst the vampires." I replied.

"What did you guys do?"

"Well we stayed completely still and frozen in silence until the vampire left. When we eventually did come out we realised Vladimir had taken off so it was just the two of us since Emmett hadn't returned yet. When he did come back he found Alice and me unable to take our eyes of off our dead friend, in shock. After that he refused to let us get too close to anyone else ever again. We would travel with other runners occasionally but that was that, and we were still betrayed by one of_ them_ in the end" I murmured with a humourless chuckle.

I took a sip of my tea. The story had made my throat dry.

"This is terrible." I commented, but Bella didn't seem to hear.

"Why did you tell me that?" she asked gently, after taking a sip from her own cup.

"Because… now I am starting to see where Alice comes from. It takes a lot of bravery to be a runner, to run from the vampires, but it also takes a special kind of bravery to live with them too, bravery that a 40 year old hunter who had the guts to kill a rampaging bear and live in the wilderness, didn't have, bravery that the 19 year old girl sitting next to me does have.

Bella blinked, astonished.

"You think I'm brave?"

I shrugged.

"In a way yeah. You've had to live with these _things_ for all this time"

"But you… you told Liam he was a traitor."

"I said that because I was angry and I really don't like people telling me what to do." I huffed. "So do me a favour and don't tell him about this conversation."

"I get it." Bella smiled. "Guys and your pride"

"I'm sorry about how I acted and I know you're sorry about the whole hand thing so what do you say about putting that behind us and being friends?" I asked her.

"Yeah… friends" She agreed with a shy smile.

We fell silent again. It wasn't really an awkward silence, more comfortable if anything.

"Thanks" Bella said after a while. "For what you said, for the story." She explained.

"No problem." I grinned. "I'm just channelling my inner Alice" I quipped making Bella laugh harder.

"That's something I do not get." She said. "How the hell can you two be twins? You're complete opposites."

"Not really." I disagreed. "Alice and I balance each other out but our way of thinking is exactly the same even if it is hard to see."

"So Alice's anger towards the vamps, you feel that way too?"

"Pretty much, but I deal with it in a different way than she does."

"Did you mean what you said yesterday?" she asked.

"What was that?"

"That you want to make them underestimate you." She clarified.

"If they underestimate us then it will be easier to get away because they will think we are too afraid and weak to try." I shrugged.

Bella shook her head.

"Maria's mate, Major Whitlock, he's not stupid Edward, I'm telling you this because I don't want you to get hurt, he is one of the smartest people I've ever come across, human, vampire… whatever. If he catches onto you, you're as good as dead"

"What is so special about this guy?" I asked. "Ok you say he is smart and _scary _but aren't they all like that?"

"Maria is the leader of their coven, their army, but it is Jasper who puts everything into action, he is the brains behind it and the muscle too. No one trained by him is an easy target and rumour has it he has never lost a fight. If you get on his bad side then you won't stand a chance." She looked genuinely frightened.

"Then why buy _us _for?" I argued. "Why would this supposedly fearsome vampire need two humans like me and Alice?"

Bella bit the inside of her mouth.

"What?" I asked, knowing she was holding something back. "What is it?"

She sighed knowing I wouldn't give up until she told me.

"I was thinking, and I didn't want to say it in front of Alice because… well _because_" she started. "You say your brother made sure you were both sold together right?"

"Yes" I confirmed, frowning.

"What if it wasn't _both_ of you the Major was after?"

"What do you mean?" I asked fearing I already knew, maybe I always had.

"What if he was only after Alice?" She asked hesitantly. "You saw Marias attitude towards her. What if he was only attracted to Alice and you just so happened to be sold with her?" she asked rhetorically.

I could feel my skin blanch at the words being said aloud.

"It's… not _us… _he wanted. It was only Alice." I whispered feeling sick but finally understanding.

It was all about Alice.

Alice POV 

I stared into the darkness, wide-eyed but unseeing.

I hadn't meant to eavesdrop; I had woken up halfway through Edwards's story about Stefan, glad that Bella and Edward were starting to work things out.

If I had known what was about to be said, I would have forced myself back to sleep so that I never would have heard the conversation.

A silent tear ran down my cheek as, Edward and Bella grew silent, not knowing I was awake.

The reason Edward and I were living amongst one of the fiercest vampire groups ever known, was because of me. This was _my_ fault.

I closed my eyes, trying to shut everything out, but all I saw in the plunging darkness behind them, were the shining red eyes I had seen in the corner of the warehouse, staring back at me.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Alice's POV 

"What's up Alice?" Bella asked as we started our second day painting the wall.

I hadn't told them I had heard the end of their conversation last night and when I'd gotten up in the morning, apart from Edwards anxious expression every time he looked my way, both of them seemed happy to be in each other's company. I figured it would have been mean of me to put a downer on things by bringing the complicated subject up again.

"Nothing" I mumbled. I had discarded my paint brush and was miserably picking at the grass below me with nervous fingers instead.

The pain in my neck was particularly bad today, probably because of the mood I was in. I rubbed the flesh there with my right hand wishing I could just claw into it with my nails and rip the scar out like a maniac.

"Your neck hurts doesn't it?" Edward asked from his spot on the ladder. I looked up to find him staring down at me, a frown creasing the space between his eyebrows.

Of course he'd notice.

I nodded stiffly at him, while Bella looked on confused, which was fast becoming one of the only expressions she had when around Edward and I.

"What is wrong with your neck?" she asked, looking down at me too.

I shrugged, not sure what to say. I didn't want sympathy; I _wanted_ the pain to _stop._

"She was bitten." Edward explained, making me roll my eyes. "The first day they came. The scar still torments her."

Since all I could sense off of her was curiosity, I moved my hair out of the way to show Bella the permanent bite mark.

"Whoa…" Bella murmured, eyes widening when they fell on the silver scar. "How'd you get away from _that_?" she asked.

"It's a long story" I replied hoarsely.

It turned out Bella liked long stories so I sat and listened patiently as Edward told it to her. He really was doing all he could to include her more and be nicer to her after the bad start we had all gotten off to. He was even being nicer to some of the others downstairs, excluding Liam, who he refused to acknowledge.

When he was done Bella shook her head solemnly. "God I thought that day was bad enough for me but you two and your brother make my experience look like a day at the funfair."

"Really, what happened to you?" I asked. Maybe hearing someone else's story for a change would take my mind off thesharppain ripping into my throat and turn it into the annoying tingling kind again, the kind I preferred.

One thing that every human had in common was the day our lives changed. None of us would ever forget where we were or what we had been doing that day and I knew we never would. It sort of linked us all together in a comforting sort of way. It was one of the only things we could all share.

Bella always seemed to become a bit awkward when the spotlight was turned on her, but I guessed that was because she was so shy.

"Well, I come from phoenix Arizona…" She started slowly. She looked like she was struggling with the attention so I decided to help her out.

"I guess that's why you don't mind the heat down here" I commented.

"Yeah" Edward agreed. "We Washington folk can't stand it."

Bella laughed.

"I don't think _I'd _like it much in _Washington_." She admitted. "Wetness, ice and I don't have the best relationship. Anyway" She went on "My dad was the chief of police in my town and my mom lived a couple of blocks away with her new boyfriend. It wasn't as bad as it sounds; they were pretty civil to each other. Sometimes I would stay with my dad and sometimes I'd stay with my mom and Phil. On that _day_ my dad was home early and I was at his cooking him dinner since he really couldn't cook to save his life."

She grinned to herself at the memories.

"One minute I was frying fish in a pan and the next all I could hear was this screaming. I ran out into the sitting room to find my dad standing at the window with his handgun drawn. Frantically, I asked him what was going on but he hissed at me to _get down _so I dropped to the floor instantly, he wasn't using his _dad _voice; he was using his _cop _one so I knew it was serious. The screaming continued and then suddenly our door was kicked in."

Bella bit her lip, shaking her head.

"You don't need me to tell you what it was like seeing one of them for the first time" she said.

"When I saw the red of his eyes I was so sure I was dreaming, but when he started heading towards us I began to feel frightened enough to sober up and see past his enchanting front and the blood dripping from his mouth instead. And after that I _knew _I was screwed." She smiled painfully.

"My dad sensed the danger too, because he didn't think twice about shooting the guy, something he would never have done unless he felt it to be absolutely necessary. The thing was, all the bullets just rebounded off him, falling to the floor like they had hit nothing other than a wall of steel. My dad told me to run but I couldn't even move. The vampire sped towards him and knocked the gun out of his hands, they started to struggle and that's what finely pulled me out of my shock. I ran into the kitchen not knowing what to do until I spotted the hot pan. I then ran back to the hall where my dad and the vampire had ended up, there seemed to be blood everywhere and a lot of it, the vampire dropped my dad and turned towards me and the last thing I saw before I flung all of the boiling oil from the pan over it, was my dad's lifeless body on the floor." She explained.

I didn't know about hot oil, but I knew there was something in the heat of a fire that they didn't like. Maybe the heat from the oil had _had _the same effect to.

"Did it hurt it?" I asked.

"You know, I'm not quite sure but I _think _so." Bella frowned, looking embarrassed. "I kinda passed out after that, the thought of chucking sizzling hot oil over someone no matter who it was made me queasy."

Edward started to laugh so hard there were almost tears coming out of his eyes.

"You passed out because you threw oil over the guy that was going to kill you?" he asked in disbelief.

"It's really not that funny." Bella said, but she was fighting laughs herself.

"So then what happened?" I asked. "How did you manage to escape if you were unconscious?

"Well I woke up in my dad's police station, apparently the oil must have hurt the vampire badly enough for it to leave because one of my dad's colleagues was able to find me in our house and take me down town."

"What so there was only _one_ vampire?" Edward asked, thinking that if Bella had been able to escape with someone there must not have been many vampires to stop them.

"Well Phoenix, overall, is quite big, but the town we lived in was small so we were only attacked by a few vampires to start with. This gave a couple of people enough time to get to safety. It was lucky Joshua, my dad's colleague, thought to check my house and find me in the small amount of time between the first vampires came and the others arrived. Anyway when I asked him about my dad he went all quiet with the same expression my dad used to get before he had to go and tell someone that a relative of theirs had died so it didn't take me long to work it out. My mom was missing too and we were stuck, barricaded in the station until the broadcast ordering us to surrender came on the radio. Joshua and I decided together that the best thing we could do at that moment was to surrender, so we slowly emerged from the station." She told us.

"There were other survivors all around us filling the street like _they_ had asked and I even spotted Phil, but in the short amount of time I had to ask him about my mom ,while a group of vamps were rounding us up, he told me she didn't make it either. We were all sorted out to different owners and I ended up here." She finished with a shrug. She was trying to act nonchalant about it but I knew that the memory was causing her to rediscover her grief.

"I'm sorry" I murmured, thinking of my own parents.

I knew no matter what, they still would have died on the road that day but I couldn't help but wonder _if_…

"Do you think things would have turned out a lot differently if we had just surrendered?" Edward asked me, beating me to the punch.

The same question had been running through my own mind so it took me a few minutes to think of an answer, in which time I picked up my brush and began to work on the wall again.

"I don't know." I replied eventually, at a loss. "But I _do_ know that the future changes with every decision that is made, and so far, regarding you, me and Emmett, I can't find a single decision that wasn't made for the right reasons. Everything we've done, we've done with our best interests at heart and that's fine by me. You to Bella, by the sounds of it you did what was best in the position you were in" I answered. "It's about the only thing we _can_ do."

Edward nodded, turning back towards the wall with his white paint roller. "That's exactly what I was thinking." He admitted.

"Well I'd be a bit worried if it wasn't." I commented. "People would really start to doubt our _twinliness_." I said, sending Bella a pointed look, which made her blush.

"I don't think '_twinliness' _is a word." Edward remarked.

"I think it's a word in Alice's dictionary." Bella joined in, smiling gratefully at me. Maybe if the other humans saw the submitants in the same light I did, the resentment towards them would stop.

"See!" I exclaimed, motioning towards her but looking at Edward. "_Someone_ understands me" I grinned before going quiet again.

I was doing my best to act as normal as possible and I suppose telling our stories had taken some of the attention off me of me for a while, but the weight of what I had heard them talking about last night was still dragging me down and I knew they could tell I wasn't quite right too, with or without the neck pain.

It was only until we were finally starting to pack up that Edward demanded answers. I had let him and Bella talk amongst themselves for the rest of the day, barely putting a word in, which I knew, in itself, would set alarm bells off in Edwards head, he knew better than anyone else how much of a chatterbox I was.

We had just put everything away and I was starting to undergo the walk back to the front of the house when Edward stopped me.

"Hey, hang on a sec Alice!" he called grabbing my elbow and turning me around to face him and a worried looking Bella. "What's wrong?" He asked seriously, his eyes were telling me that he wasn't going to take anything other than the truth for an answer.

That didn't stop me from trying.

"My neck it-"

Edward shook his head.

"Don't tell me it's your neck. I know you Alice, better than anyone else in the whole world and you never let the pain of it get to you this much in front of people, even Emmett, so don't treat me like an idiot. Your neck might hurt but there is something more to It." he guessed

I had been avoiding eye contact with him all day, but now I looked straight into them for the first time and the truth seemed to click because he screwed up his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and ring finger.

"_Fuck" _he muttered after a second, running a hand through his hair, while I rocked on the balls of my feet awkwardly.

"What?" Bella asked astonished.

"She heard" Edward sighed.

"Heard what?" Bella frowned.

"She heard _us_." Edward clarified. "She heard us talking last night"

"Oh Alice," Bella sighed finally getting it too. "Don't worry about it ok. We were just going over our options." She tried.

"No you weren't" I disagreed. "What you said made sense and don't you try to deny it, it's fine, I guess I'm just-"

I rolled my eyes, trying to hide any emotions that were trying to spill out of them.

"It's not your fault." Edward looked stern. "We still would have ended up being brought" he comforted, wrapping me up in a hug.

"But here." I commented. "With these…" I trailed off, thinking of the vicious group of vampires we had heard so much about.

"It's better than a bloodbank and it actually runs circles around a breeding place." Edward pointed out with a disgusted scowl. "Come on what would Emmett say if he were here?" he asked. "You know he'd flip out if he saw you blaming _yourself_ for being brought by a freak."

He was right. Emmett would completely blow up if he saw me now.

"Yeah" I responded meekly.

"Seriously Alice, don't lose sleep over it." Bella recommended. "It's probably nothing anyway, just a hunch, and in any case, how are our '_stupid little human brains' _supposed to know what's going on in a vampires superior mind?" she tried.

That made me smile.

We finally started our walk back. It was pitch black outside now and I could tell Bella was getting anxious because we had stayed out a lot longer than we should have.

It even started to get cold enough to rival the blistering days as the night air began to whip my hair around violently above my head

"Will the door still be open?" Edward asked, straining to be heard over the whistling wind.

"It should be" Bella replied. "They always know if people haven't returned yet so they'll leave it open for a while. We just better hope that there is no one waiting for us. There probably won't be though, I can't tell you the amount of times Liam and Siobhan have been late."

"They don't seem like the type to risk getting in trouble." I commented, thinking of the quiet couple.

"They will get a lot more then '_in trouble_' if the vampires discover what they get up to." Bella stated blushing.

"Oh…_Ew_" I frowned blinking rapidly.

"Better anywhere else then were we _all_ sleep at night though right?" Edward stated.

That brought on a wave of grossed out laughter from all of us.

"Hey Bella," I started when we had finished. "No one here gets, you know, snacked on… right?" I asked.

If the reason we were brought here was down to me (I know Bella and Edward were acting skeptical about it but I figured that was only to make me feel better) I definitely didn't want it to be because I was expected to become someone's '_bloodshake'_.

"Sometimes" Bella admitted. "But they only do that when they really need to. They prefer to hunt and there is only a very small amount of us that have actually been bitten."

"Have you?" I asked wondering if she felt the same pain I did if she had. Maybe if I found someone who had been bitten too I could discover why it hurt so much or even better, a way to stop it.

"No…Sorry." She apologized upon seeing my disappointment.

I was about to ask her if she knew anyone who had, when Edward interrupted.

"So they hunt free runners and rebels to _eat_ instead of taking them to the warehouses?" he inquired.

Bella nodded, _yes. _"Like I said if you live here they will probably leave you alone."

"See Alice" Edward said. "_Both_ of us were most likely brought on a stupid whim" he empathized, attempting to disarm the situation one more time, as we finally started to approach the door.

Shrugging, I found myself hoping to God that the door was still open and that someone wasn't waiting for us on the other side. I couldn't help thinking that maybe Peter and charlotte were waiting for us, or even worse Maria…

_Come on Alice, _Itried to comfort myself. _You're over reacting; it's no good being this paranoid. _

But as we grew nearer to the French doubles sitting under the marble balcony that was glowing magnificently in the dark of the night, I began to feel more uneasy and jittery. Something was telling me to turn around and to head in the opposite direction until my feet started to bleed, but even if that were possible, something else, something a lot more demanding, was forcing me forwards.

"Guys I-I feel…I'm not too sure about this." I whispered as quietly as I could, eyeing the door apprehensively. I wanted to stop but it was like my body wasn't giving me a choice in the matter.

"What do you mean?" Bella hissed. "Are you out of your mind? We're already late." She muttered. "If we don't go in now we'll be in even more trouble if they catch us." She said as we finally reached the entrance.

I looked at Edward, desperately hoping he'd be able to sense what I was and that I _wasn't _somehow _'out of my mind' _like Bella suggested_._

My brother's troubled expression told me that he could also feel something wasn't right but he decided to shrug it off as Bella wrapped her fingers around the handle.

"Don't worry" Edward muttered. "I won't let anything bad happen to us." He promised as Bella pulled on the handle and pushed the door open.

We didn't even have enough time to notice anyone in the hall before the voice reached my ears.

"I wouldn't be _so_ sure about _that_"

Bella let out a tiny gasp beside me, while Edwards head shot up in shock.

_Oh God… _

_I _didn't even have to look up.

It was the _voice…_the voice at the auction, the one that had brought us, I was sure of it, so sure in fact, I knew when I _did_ look up I'd find the same red eyes from the darkness too.

This was bad… this was very, _very…_ _bad_.

**That's the end of my spree. It's just gone past 1.00am and I'm about to fall asleep on top of my laptop, so hopefully the next chapter will be up tomorrow. :)**

**Like I said I'm sorry if there's any grammar issues or anything I had to work fast. **

**I'm interested to hear your thoughts so leave some even if they're negative, they help. **

**- Emmie x **


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

**__****BlackDiamond15, ****Esme will definitely turn up.**

**Two Chapters tonight. Not as many as yesterday but they're exciting (for me anyway and hopefully for you)**

Alice's POV 

/PREVIOUSLY/

"_I wouldn't be _so _sure about _that_" _

_Bella let out a tiny gasp beside me, while Edwards head shot up in shock._

Oh God…

I_ didn't even have to look up._

_It was the _voice_…the voice from the auction, the one that had brought us, I was sure of it, so sure in fact, I knew when I _did _look up I'd find the same red eyes from the darkness too. _

_This was bad… this was very, _very_… bad. _

X

I sucked the left side of my mouth into my teeth and bit _hard_, partly out of fear and partly to stop any snarky comment flying from my lips before my mind even had a chance to review it for its _likeliness to get me _into a lot of trouble.

_Better safe than sorry, _I thought,or in my case, _better_ _silent and alive than _upfront and _dead. _

From the exact moment the cold drawl reached my ears, my body had frozen like it had been dipped into a vat of liquid nitrogen. My eyes were fixed onto a black diamond shaped tile on the floor a few paces in front of me, afraid to move.

Maybe staying as still as possible would make me as invisible as a chameleon who could blend into its surroundings, but I knew it was useless, nothing could hide me now. I felt like I was on display at the auction all over again.

He was here, our buyer was_ here_, and I knew I was about to start _slowly freaking out_...

_Someone just say something! _I thought feeling ill, _I can't take the silence. _

"We're um, we're… very sorry we're late." Bella stuttered shakily.

I knew it was the best thing to say but the way she apologised made me I feel as though I was 14 again, some friends had convinced me to go to Seattle with them after school. My parents had been huge curfew people and for one reason or another we had been hours late getting back. Being the idiot I was, I figured I could shimmy up the drainpipe that ran up the side of our house to my window and sneak inside.

The good part was that my window was miraculously open and I managed to stumble into the dark room, even if I did end up sprawled out and breathless on my carpet by the end of it.

The not so good part was, seconds later my bedroom light clicked on and I looked up from the floor to find my parents standing in the door way. My dad's arms were folded tightly, my mom had a hand on the light switch and from their expressions they were _both _fuming. Even my sheepish grin hadn't stopped me from being grounded for a month.

Bella's ashamed apology took me back to that moment in my life, and that agitated me. My parents had done what they did for my own good, their punishment had taught me that all they wanted was the best for _me_. They didn't want me to turn into one of those girls that defied their parents endlessly, stayed out late, got knocked up and ended up a single parent with no contact with their family at all.

The vampires made you feel like you owed them the same respect and curtsy, they could punish us too if they wanted, but what was that going to teach us? They were just doing it for the sake of doing it. It was the '_I'm big and you're little' _scenario and that kind of thing pissed me right off.

I was so mad that I almost forgot about the vampire in the room…or _vampires_ as I found out next.

"I'm not convinced your friends…_Edward_ and _Alice, was it?_, feel the same way." Another voice replied. I knew instantly that the Spanish accent with the mocking tone belonged to Maria.

Could this really get any worse? Maria was here _and_ our buyer…

Despite my thoughts on the subject, it was my fault we had been late and now we were paying the consequence.

I chanced a quick glance up, it wasn't a look long enough to notice specifics but it gave me enough time to work out that it_ was _worse then I had imagined, there was about six of them there. My best guess was probably Maria, Peter, Charlotte and _Maria's mate. _The rest…I had no idea.

It became silent for a couple of seconds before my brother broke it.

"Yeah" Edward said quickly. "We're sorry too, we lost track of the time" He explained, speaking for the both of us but I knew that wasn't going to cut it.

Going silent once again, I could literally hear the words Edward was trying to force into my head.

_Say something…NOW!_

_Make up your mind, say something? Keep it shut? I can't do both! _I thought back, knowing he'd catch on, he always was the better one when it came to knowing what_ I_ was thinking, which was why I couldn't really tell what _he_ was thinking next but I did know that if I didn't do what he was asking he'd virtually disown me.

"Sure" I mumbled, still studying the black diamond on the floor like it was an organism from another planet. "I am so _very_ sorry we're late." I continued, trying to work the sarcastic edge out of my tone, it was the nicest thing I'd ever said to a bunch of blood hungry leeches, so why did I still end up becoming the centre of attention?

There was a short gust of wind and then-

"_Liar_" a , or more specifically, _the,_ voice hissed right by my ear. I gasped violently and spun around, intending to face him (and do what, I do not know) but by the time I reached 180 degrees there was nothing behind me but the door.

I wanted scream in fury. They were playing with us, _he_ was playing with _me_.

Maria and her cronies seemed to find my shocked reaction, absolutely hilarious but I refused to let myself feel humiliated, so I sucked it up like Edward was always telling me to do, and turned around slowly to stare down at the black diamond tile again, refusing to give them the satisfaction of getting a rise out of me.

"What's the matter? Are you not feeling so brave_ now_?" I had been right, Charlotte _was_ there.

The urge to retort was _immense. _A comeback was trying to rip its way out of my throat but to my utter surprise _Edward _beat me to it.

"What's the matter? Does a brave human intimidate _you_?"

My head snapped to the side to look at my brother with wide-eyes. Was I hearing correctly? Edward had actually talked back to them. He was always going on and on at me for doing it, what had changed?

Then I suddenly realised that the scare of hearing the sinister voice in my ear had caused my breathing to become slightly uneven. Unlike me, who didn't think anything of my breathing patterns unless I urgently needed my pump, Edward had noticed and now he was trying to draw the attention away from me and onto himself so that_ they_ _wouldn't _notice.

_What are you doing? I am FINE, _my thoughts screamed at him.

Edward was staring at the vampire's dead on, ignoring the fact that I was trying to get his attention.

"Here_ I_ was thinking that you were supposed to be the _smart _one out of the both of you Edward." Maria drawled. "-and sadly brave humans annoy me more than they do intimidate." She went on vindictively. "What about you? Do brave humans intimidate _you_ Jasper?"

I seemed to become even more alert when she said his name for the first time, I mean I knew what it was, Bella had been the one to tell us it, but hearing it said aloud right then and there made it all the more real, that the guy that had brought us, was here in this room, at this moment, staring at _me._

The aching scar on neck seemed to throb at the thought.

"_Intimidate?" _the deep southern twang chuckled with cruel smoothness.

I was still staring downwards but I could hear the sound of him moving forwards. This time he moved at a human pace but I could _feel _him getting closer and closer.

Oh God if he did something to Edward I wouldn't need my throat to close in on itself.

A pair of boot covered feet and jean clad legs came into my view, they were moving towards my brother in a slow and threatening manner.

Bella was fidgeting noisily and nervously beside me. The sounds of her uncomfortableness seemed to echo in my head like a giant bell until I almost told her to _cut it out_. It was weird how loud she seemed to be but I suppose the situation was making me extra sensitive.

"Do you think the likes of _you intimidate_ _me_, even if you were _brave_" he said mockingly "you wouldn't so much as make me _hesitate _to break your neck" The man hissed.

All I had to do was look slightly to my left and see where they were both standing to know that the vampire was squaring my brother off.

I knew now what Edward felt every time I put my life in danger by saying stupid things.

Edward could have kept quiet or he could have muttered an apology, he had taken the attention off of me, but now it had become more of a pride thing that he was defending.

It didn't matter if they were human _or_ vampires, I swear pride got more men killed than anything else.

"Break it then" Edward countered. "We all know how easy it is for people like _you_ to kill humans, that's the _only _reason _you _rule, not because you're braver then _us_."

I couldn't believe my ears. That was definitely something I would have said but now it just seem so foolish.

_Not a great time to be swapping character traits Edward!, What happened to them underestimating us? _I thought desperately.

The vampire growled, a sound so terrifying it almost brought tears to my eyes, he was going to kill him or else seriously hurt him, and_ I_ knew it.

If we lived through this, I knew Edward would completely butcher me for what I was about to do next but as long as he was alive I wouldn't care.

I sucked in a breath of air for good luck, hoping my lungs and throat wouldn't betray me just this once, before quickly bringing myself to stand in front of Edward, putting _myself _between the_ two_ of _them_.

Looking up, I finally faced the threat.


	16. Chapter 16

**Finally! **_**He**_** is here! **

**Chapter 16**

Jasper's POV 

Skidding to a halt on the gravel, I finally reached the path leading towards the mansion Maria insisted, so relentlessly, we own.

In my opinion we didn't belong here. It was such a_ human_ necessity to live in a box with four walls and a lid, an_ extravagant_ box, I wasn't going to deny _that_, but a box all the same and we were not meant to live that way. Our place was in the wild, hunting and fighting for dominance, but Maria would always get what she wanted, it was one of the things that attracted me to her I suppose.

_And I still have my hunting and fighting_. I thought with a grin.

The wind was strong in Texas tonight, if I was human I might have found it difficult to walk in a straight line, but I got to the entrance without as much as a hitch. I knew the doors would be open, as per usual, so I pushed my way inside.

"Look what the cat dragged in."

A surge of annoyance welled up inside me, of course I would have to deal with _her_, as soon as I walked through the door.

"Charlotte" I greeted bitterly, looking up to find her sitting on the bannister to the spiral staircase.

"Where the hell have you been!" she hissed.

I sent her a warning look.

"The day I have to explain myself to _you _is the day you'll stop existing so I suggest you tread carefully." I advised.

"How dare you! We were all asked to report back here after New York, but where were you, off gallivanting around in Washington like the fool you are." She spat leaping off her spot and stalking towards me.

My body was itching to react to her aggressiveness, she should know better than to come at _me_ like that.

"Peter…" I growled, knowing the other vampire wouldn't be too far away from his mate. "Come and shut your woman up before _I_ do." I threatened.

Suddenly, he was there, taking Charlottes hand, to stop her from getting any closer. He was lucky I thought of him as an ally. If she had been the mate of another, I would have ripped her head clean off without a second thought and I would have done it ages ago too.

"Jasper," He nodded in greeting. "It's nice to have you back."

The satisfaction of feeling Charlotte's irritation at that, made my anger diminish slightly.

"It's good to be home" I agreed, referring to Texas as a state as opposed to this place specifically.

It remained quiet for a little while before Peter started to feel weary. I fought the amused grin that wanted to form on my lips, I liked the way people thought I was going to go berserk at anything they had to say.

"Go on." I commanded him.

The vampires were used to that from me by now so it didn't surprise Peter that I knew he wanted to say something.

"You've caused quite the stir around here." He admitted.

"Oh have I?" I asked tauntingly. "I hope no one feels too _confrontational_ about it" I said sending a pointed look towards Charlotte, "I'd just hate to have to _discharge_ perfectly good fighters."

Both of them seemed to grow slightly anxious at my double meaning.

"That would be fun to watch I must admit." A voice purred.

I looked past Peter and Charlotte to find Maria leaning on the same part of the bannister Charlotte had been sitting on moments before. Lucy and Nettie were standing a few paces behind her.

I sent her a wicked grin before speeding forwards to grab her. She smiled seductively at me before pressing her lips into mine.

"I've missed you." I whispered into her ear.

"And I you." She replied in that accent I loved so much. "But where have you been?" she smiled. "Charlotte is right I did issue my orders."

I let go of her to lean lazily on the opposite side of the bannister. "Business with Jenks" I shrugged. "The lowlife is feeding me information about the Volturi."

"How do you know he's not doing the same with them?" Nettie asked.

My gaze didn't leave Maria's, but I answered Nettie's question all the same.

"He wouldn't dare, the man is as frightened of me as a human is, a pathetic excuse for a vampire." I spat disgustedly.

"Everyone is scared of you _mi Amor_" Maria replied proudly.

I grinned, "Are _you_?" I asked, making her laugh.

"Me? No… I just like to watch as you make others tremble with fear."

The lust coming off of her was so intense that even though I had just been hunting, I could feel my red eyes begin to darken.

"Just so you know three humans haven't returned." Charlotte butted in with that aggravating voice of hers. "And I'll even give you three guesses who _two _of them are, ring any bells _Jasper_?" she asked me with a smug expression to match the emotion. "Or have you already forgotten about the extra burdens you sent us?"

The look I sent her was so dangerous she shut her mouth as fast as she could. That woman was starting to push me too far, she had obviously forgotten who was in charge during my time away. Not only was she incessant, but she was a mood killer too as Maria's lust had already yielded to curiosity.

_Well the subject had to come up sooner or later_, I thought with annoyance.

"Ah yes" Maria hummed. "I had quite the pleasure of meeting your little _pet_"

"Wasn't their two of them?" I asked disinterestedly, referring to her lack of plural use.

"_Yes._" Maria was amused. "But unless you have grown an interest for boys, I'm inclined to assume that the pretty little _girl _belongs to you."

I had to laugh at that.

"_Pretty?" _I asked. "She must have made an impact on _you_ then, the next thing you'll be telling me is that you're jealous of her." I teased. If she was jealous of a human, I was going to die laughing.

Maria pouted. "Well you bring home a dainty little flower like that, and here_ I_ am, how can you expect me _not_ to feel at least a tiny bit defensive?" She asked innocently.

"Maybe that's why I need something a little more _fragile_." I leaned into her. "You can't expect me to be on the receiving end of you and _your _claws all of the time can you?_ I_ need a little fun too." I whispered, making her giggle.

"So you brought them on a whim? That's not like you." She commented with a raised eyebrow. "Some of the others are saying you're off your head."

I tilted my _head_ to the side, "Give me the names of those who believe that, they'll experience just how much I'm off my head when they lose theirs."

"If I may." Peter spoke up. "Don't you think it's a bit risky? They are runners after all."

"They're _my_ responsibly, even the boy I suppose." I said dully. "If they try anything,_ I'll_ see to them."

"So you did not have the chance to meet them before they came here?" Maria almost sung, she was feeling mischievous and that got me intrigued.

"No, I just paid a driver to throw them in a car and bring them straight here." I said bluntly.

Maria let out a humorous laugh.

"Well I hope you are as entertained as I was with the impudence." She grinned.

"Not to mention the rudeness and the total disregard of respect." Charlotte added feeling self-satisfied.

"If the boy continues to act that way with _me_, I'll just have to kick the respect into him." I shrugged, meaning it.

Charlotte snickered while Maria let out tinkling chime of laughter, even Peter couldn't fight the smirk that formed on his face.

"What?" I spat, not liking the fact that they knew something I didn't.

"It won't be the _boy _you'll be kicking." Maria laughed devilishly.

I couldn't pretend I wasn't shocked. "The _girl_?" I asked raising an eyebrow in disbelief.

"She's a right firecracker," Maria confirmed. "I assumed you knew."

It took me a moment to respond.

"_No…_I did not… but I suppose that's all the more fun for me" I shrugged. "What have you got them doing?"

"I let the young brown haired girl, _Isabella_ I'm sure she said her name was, take care of them."

"And the three of them haven't returned?"

"I've been waiting and they haven't come in yet." Charlotte said haughtily. "I reckon that little troublemaker convinced the other two to make a run for it."

"Haven't you got anything better to do?" I asked. "You must be a pretty miserable bitch if all you do is wait for the humans to come back every day." I threw at her.

"_Jasper-"_ Peter started but I ignored him.

"I will give them _3_ minutes. If they are not back by then and I have to go looking for them _myself _I won't be happy." I guaranteed.

2 minutes and 10 seconds: that's how long it took for us to start hearing the sounds of the humans approaching.

2 minutes and 30 seconds: One of them was feeling so reluctant in what they were doing, they were considering doing the opposite. It was as if they could sense what was waiting for them. I sent out a wave of duress giving them no choice but to move forwards.

2 minutes and 40 seconds: "Guys I-I feel…I'm not too sure about this."

"What do you mean?" the girl I recognized to live here hissed. "Are you out of your mind? We're already late." She muttered. "If we don't go in now we'll be in even more trouble if they catch us."

_If? _

2 minutes and 59 Seconds: "Don't worry" a male voice tried to reassure. "I won't let anything bad happen to us."

When the 3 minutes I had given them were up the doors were pushed open and all three humans stepped inside. "I wouldn't be _too _sure about _that" _I leered in response to the boy's promise.

The familiar brown haired girl gasped pitifully at the sight of me, while the boy I recalled standing on the stage in Washington looked me up and down bewilderedly. I wasted no more than a second of my time to look over the two of them before my gaze landed on the one in the middle.

_She_, was the only one not looking at us. Her gaze was fixed religiously on a tile a few paces in front of her as if it held the answer to all of her life's problems. Tense arms were folded tightly across her chest as her emotions screamed panic and confusion.

"We're um, we're… very sorry we're late." The brunette stuttered shamefacedly like the obedient little fool she was. My eyes darted to her for a split second before the surge of annoyance hit me and I found myself staring back at the other girl who I sensed had become so irritated she could hardly contain herself.

_Why are you so annoyed sweetheart? _I thought amused. Maria caught my eye and I knew she wanted to have a little fun.

Nodding to give her the go ahead, I knew it would be interesting to see how my two new humans reacted to her antics, or more precisely, how _she _reacted. If she was the little menace the others made her out to be I wanted to see it firsthand.

"I'm not convinced your friends…_Edward_ and _Alice, _was it, feel the same way." Maria criticised in a tone I recognised to be playful, but I knew they'd interpret it as displeasure.

_Alice…_

_She _seemed even more disheartened by the revelation Maria was in the room too, and suspecting there might be others, her eyes lifted for the matter of a micro second before they dropped to the floor again.

The boy, _Edward, _as Maria had named him, looked between Charlotte, Peter, Lucy, Nettie, Maria and I carefully. He was filled to the brim with hatred but he was fighting not to let that hatred leak into his actions.

He sucked in a small breath, preparing to speak.

"Yeah, we're sorry too, we lost track of the time." He apologised. The, _we're, _he had used told me he was speaking for the girl too but if he thought that would satisfy me he was hugely mistaken.

_Two down_ _but still_ _one_ _to go. _I thought, staring at _her_ with a fierce intensity.

After several changes in emotion, the reluctance steaming off of her turned into acceptance and she finally said what we were all waiting to hear.

"Sure, I am so _very_ sorry we're late."

It was the first time I had heard her voice properly, and even as she spoke, she kept her eyes glued to the floor, completely refusing to acknowledge us. That, as well as the bitter sarcasm dripping like venom from her voice made me angry.

I didn't even need my empathy to know she had total lack of care for who she was speaking to.

I was gone from my spot on the bannister in an instant, the two humans who had actually been looking at us had no time to react, let alone _her. _

I appeared right behind the oblivious little brat, so close if she turned around now, she'd get a face full of my chest. I noticed absently that she had cut her hair, it now reached the base of her neck when before, when I had first seen her, it had reached her lower back (even if it had been full of knots).

It went much slower in vampire time than it did in human time

I lowered myself until my lips were nearly touching the lobe of her right ear. If I had breath, she would have been aware of my presence instantly but I had the luxury of not having to rely on something as simple as air to keep me existing.

"_Liar" _I murmured provocatively in her ear.

She gasped and jumped hard, spinning around to confront me, but by the time she was facing where I had just been standing I was already gone again, staring at her from where I had been lounging on the bannister to begin with.

Maria burst out into a fit of tinkling laughter, which the others joined in on and even _I _couldn't help the chuckle that escaped my lips.

Strangely, the humiliation I was expecting to come from her was replaced by fury instead.

"What's the matter? Are you not feeling so brave_ now_?" Charlotte sneered.

A desire to reply was overpowering the girl's better judgement and her chest was heaving strongly, at first I thought it was from the scare or her anger but the pattern was all wrong.

I frowned, studying her closely.

Her lips parted and I was so sure she was going to retort when-

"What's the matter? Does a brave human intimidate _you_?" the bronze haired boy asked quickly, diverting all of our attention his way.

I had to scoff at him. _Brave? _His kind didn't know the meaning of the word.

He caught my eye and held my stare as if asking to be hurt.

"Here_ I_ was thinking that you were supposed to be the _smart _one out of the both of you Edward." Maria smiled. "-and sadly brave humans annoy me more than they do intimidate." She grinned "What about you? Do brave humans intimidate _you_ Jasper?" My mate asked, knowing this would just make the game all the more enjoyable.

The girl's interest spiked as soon as my name left Maria's lips.

_Ah so you _have _heard of me. _I couldn't help but smirk smugly.

"_Intimidate?" _I chuckled in response to Marias question, moving slowly towards the boy who I had earlier assumed was the girl's brother, and still did.

I wandered what would happen if I took it up a notch.

The brunette human, who I had literally forgotten about until now, became filled with fear as I stalked closer to them, she was scared for this boy, making me wander if the two of them had something going on.

I only stopped when I was mere inches away from his face, boxing him in with my shoulders. The girl was right beside him, I wanted so badly to know what she was thinking but I had to settle with her emotions which were jumping all over the place.

"Do you think the likes of _you intimidate_ _me_, even if you were _brave_" I mocked "you wouldn't so much as make me _hesitate _to break your neck"

If he was smart he would have stayed quiet, but humans were never smart were they? They always had to take it that one step further and then they wondered why we despised them so.

"Break it then" He challenged. "We all know how easy it is for people like _you_ to kill humans, that's the _only _reason _you _rule, not because you're braver then us."

_Oh you'll regret that, I promise you._

Vampires were _made_ to rule, not just because we were physically stronger, but because the humans were too weak-minded to. They couldn't even make up their minds on simple things during their reign.

I briefly wandered what the other two would do as I beat this one to a bloody pulp in front of them.

I was just about to deliver the first blow when I heard_ her_ suck in a breath of air and then push herself in front of the boy. It took her a couple of seconds but she eventually lifted her head to stare up at me defiantly.

_Oh, what _are_ we going to do with you now? _I thought evilly.

**Hehehe…I love mean Jasper! :D**

**I will **_**try **_**to update tomorrow but I can't make any promises. Stupid essays.**

**Review!**

**- Emmie x **


	17. Chapter 17

**Okay, I was originally going to post an Emmett chapter before this one (This was supposed to be chapter 18) but not only did I not have the heart to leave you hanging after yesterday's cliff-hanger but I also tend to write Jasper chapters a lot faster as they come easily to me, so I decided to give you this chapter today and then maybe leave a day or two to finish essays and get more chapters ready for this. **

**Hope that's okay, although I think you'll be grateful for this chapter now though. **

**Chapter 17**

Alice's POV 

_Scars_

That was the first thing I noticed.

He was _covered… _in _scars. _

They were frightening.

Shining lightning bolts of teeth and claw marks, covering his sleeveless forearms, clustering around his jaw and even tainting the back of his hands.

Each and every one that I could see seemed to jump out at me like a sequence of shocking shots in a horror film, but even though this is how I saw them, I noticed almost instantly that they didn't make _him_ look any less enchanting, just all the more _sinister_.

Honeyed strands of messy hair stopped as they curled around his ears, his nose was strong and straight as it led you down to his firm lips, which were held by a hard jaw.

He was your stereotypical cowboy, dressed in jeans and a light button-up shirt which sleeves were pulled all the way to his elbows. In fact, the only thing that seemed to be missing from his whole retro look, was the hat and the piece of straw dangling from his mouth.

I chanced a quick look at his eyes, they were a dark crimson as opposed to a brighter shade; and were definitely the same ones I had seen in the darkness, fierce and uninviting.

All this detail, I noticed in the space of a long second, a long second in which I had made my own bed to lie in, I couldn't turn back time now. I had done what I had done and now I had to deal with it.

Time seemed to resume and come back to life after what had seemed like a few moments of adrenaline fuelled slow motion.

_Say something! _I commanded myself. _You can't just jump in front of the guy and say nothing, they'll think your some kind of…nut._

"Alice!" Edward exclaimed in a mixture of shock, fear and fury.

He was definitely going to lose it when we got downstairs but for the moment I ignored him and focused all my efforts on finding the right words to say to the more terrifying one of the two I was standing in-between.

"Look," I said slowly, refusing to stare the vampire in the eye again. "We've said we're sorry _ok_, now can we _please _go?" I asked, working to keep my voice steady. I could tell this man liked to play with fear so I was determined not to give him any.

Although, every second that he didn't reply made doing that harder and harder.

Edward grabbed my hand, making me look over my shoulder quickly to face him. I noticed nonchalantly that Bella had moved to his side looking absolutely horrified as she stared at me with bulging eyes.

"Alice" my brother hissed. "Shut up…_now"_

I didn't know what I was going to say to that, but I didn't even get the chance to put one word in, before my elbow was grabbed and I was whirled around like a salsa dancer.

He pulled me forwards until my face was so close to his I had to stand on the tips of my toes so that I didn't go tumbling into him head first.

I was so startled I thought my heart was going to explode in my chest, shattering my ribs and destroying my body like a living landmine.

_Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, _I repeated to myself over and over.

"You know, I have this problem." The vampire started disdainfully. I knew he was talking to me but I still couldn't bring myself to recognize that fact properly. "-It makes me _really_ hate it when somebody doesn't look me in the eye when they're are talking to me."

I wanted to bang my head on something hard. After I had just acknowledged the fact he practically fed off fear, I should have realised that my complete lack of eye contact would have also powered his hunger.

His hand was a vice on my arm. For every second that went by in silence, his grip seemed to become tighter and tighter until the limb went numb from lack of circulation.

In the end I couldn't help but attempt to pull my arm away from him.

_Bad _idea

He twisted it at such an odd angle I yelped out in pain, and had to literally bite down on the inside of my mouth to stop myself from letting free a full out scream.

Edward was shouting something and there was a flurry of motion going on behind me but it wasn't exactly my first priority to see what it was.

Knowing what he was after, I lifted my tense eyes to meet his rock hard ones.

"That's better" he drawled in that strong accent. "Now, what were you saying?"

My insides were trembling in anger, like when your whole body convulses with rage and you just feel like lashing out and hitting something, but at the same time I was scared as well, the scar on my neck seemed to be sending electric warning signals shooting through my body and his eyes were just so frightening to look at.

Knowing that keeping him waiting would only make things worse. I forced myself to repeat my earlier comment, only looking right at him this time instead.

"I said," I breathed. "We have said we're sorry now can we please… go?"

The only things I was concentrating on were me and _him. _Everything else seemed to fade into the background like watercolour, even Edward and Bella, who had all but vanished.

I knew the other vampires would be commenting and jeering and that my brother would be trying to talk our way out of this nightmare, but I was too caught up in the moment to notice.

"Saying things and meaning them are a completely different kettle of fish _sweetheart_." He leered.

_What more do you want me to say? 'I hate all your guts and I don't give a damn whether I was late'?_

"I did." I said awkwardly instead. "I _do_ mean it."

I thought he was going to respond straight away but instead he slid his hand from where it was gripping the top half of my arm, all the way down to my wrist. The sleeves of my dress only reached my elbows so when his stone cold skin touched mine I almost jumped in shock at the dramatic change in temperature. It was almost as if someone was running a dozen ice cubes down my arm instead of a hand which would normally be warm with blood flow.

As his fingers trailed down, angry red marks sprung up on my skin to show where his grip had been, and with the removal of pressure, came the throb of pain.

Once holding my wrist he turned it this way and that, seeming to inspect the damage he had done. I didn't know what I looked like to everyone else in the room but I hoped it was unintelligible because inside I was a wreck of emotions not knowing what to feel, and I didn't want them to see that.

"That will bruise-" He said almost solemnly, although I wasn't fooled as he brought his face so close to mine again that our noses were almost touching.

Nearly everything in me was telling me to turn my face away, but knowing nothing good could come of that I forced myself to keep on looking ahead. I started to pretend he was someone else, someone who I had admired _before_, an actor…I don't know, like Paul walker or Ryan Gosling.

I imagined I was engaged in a conversation with either of them and didn't want to look like one of those annoying fan girls that used to flock around A-list stars like seagulls at a beach.

I wasn't stupid, I knew this was nowhere near that kind of situation but the agenda was still pretty much the same, my target being to stay calm and collected instead of jittery and incoherent and thinking of it this way made things a lot easier.

"-and if you keep on lying to me it will break too." His lips pulled up to show his teeth in a mocking sort of way as his eyes flickered dangerously. Dully noting that Edward had broken his arm before for some reason, I continued to stare at him nonchalantly.

_I'm the mouse, _I thought absently. _I'm the mouse and he's the cat playing with me. Maybe if I start to play along he'll get bored. _

Maybe that's where I had been going wrong all along.

"So let's try this again shall we?" he whispered, face still so close to mine. "You're _late_."

I took a preparing breath through my nose, before opening my mouth.

"I know" I answered frankly.

"And are you sorry?" He asked, making it sound as if he were talking to a 2 year old.

"No" I replied bluntly. "I'm not sorry at all."

"And why is that?" he continued.

I was about to say something along the lines of _'because it's the truth and I can't help that.'_ when an idea shot into my head. I figured either way I was going to end up condemned anyway so I could only attempt to take him down with me by saying the truth how it was and hoping he'd take the bait.

With a tiny glance in Bella's direction I braced myself.

"Because I don't feel as though I have to justify myself to the likes of _you." _I responded bitterly.

This guy had read me like a book so far. _Go on, tell me if I'm lying now, _I thought, looking at him so coldly I was afraid my eyes would freeze over.

Jasper's POV 

_Disgust. _It was flowing off her in waves before coming to crash into me with the full force of a tsunami.

I was the only one who could feel the intensity of her hatred, even if it was aimed at every single vampire in the room, and although I had warned her not to lie, the truth she had just spoken and the feelings she was feeling seemed to heat and boil every feral emotion I held.

'_The likes of me' _I thought angrily.

To top that off, the revulsion _she _was feeling towards my race was the kind we normally reserved for hers. She was basically looking down on us and that was one thing I could not manage, being looked down upon, _especially _by something as helplessly useless as a _human_.

I got so furious I could feel myself shaking with the unbridled rage of a bull seeing red.

"Oh you should _not _have said that." Charlotte giggled girlishly in the background but as always no one other than Peter took much notice of her.

_She,_ was still staring at me with an almost calm like quality to her green eyes, not seeming to care that the atmosphere in the room had turned deadly and not in her favour.

The other two humans had their emotions written on their sleeves for _all_ to see, and inside she was the same emotional shipwreck, yet all that she portrayed on the outside was calm.

"She didn't mean it ok!" the boy exclaimed thrusting himself forwards to stand next to his sister_, _who's wrist was still in my grip. It was seriously the equivalent of clutching a toothpick.

_I wonder how calm you'll seem if I were to snap that fragile little wrist. _I thought contemplating the action.

"Just let her go" her brother continued to plead. "I was the one you wanted to hurt not her."

Did he really think I cared about who I hurt?

So close to striking her (or much worse), the only thing that restrained me was one thought. If I hurt her now for telling me the truth then it would clearly backfire on my part and make me look like the fool. I had asked it of her after all.

Looking down at her, I suddenly realised she knew this. She _wanted_ me to look like I was contradicting myself and she wanted me to do it in front of the other human girl that had been here much longer then she had. If I did that it would give the other humans no reason to keep doing what they were told, since they would start assuming they'd get punished for anything and everything.

_You smug little…_

My anger evaporated as I found myself smirking like a cat finally cornering a troublesome mouse.

My face was so close to hers I could see the pulse in her neck hammering away like the heart of a humming bird.

Loosening my grip on her wrist but never let go of it, I brought my free hand up to brush a stray lock of her dark hair behind her ear. My sudden change in attitude seemed to trigger a flash of fear in her big eyes as her brows furrowed in confusion.

_Not so calm now are you. _

"Oh, it won't be long before you'll be justifying every single action you take to me." I promised. "You just need a little…_persuasion _that's all." I murmured.

Her lips parted but nothing came out, it was as if her voice was refusing to leave the safety behind them.

Discreetly bringing my mouth to her ear, I took a moment to pause before speaking. _"Nice try," _I whispered for her ears only, so quietly that not even the other vampires where able to hear, before pulling back and continuing for everyone else in the room.

"What?" I gasped feigning shock. "Nothing to say?"

Finally freeing her, I shot back to where Maria was leaning on the stairwell. I looked to where I had left the humanto find her still watching as I draped an arm around my grinning mate's shoulders.

"Well in that case you all better scurry back down to your room then." I recommended, before giving Maria a look. "We have some _catching up_ to do." I said, making her giggle.

"Yes." She agreed. "We do."

"See you around _sweetheart_" I called to the girl before disappearing from her sight with Maria in tow.

Alice POV 

He sped out of sight like a flash of lightening, not long followed by all the other vampires that had been in the room, with the exception of peter and charlotte.

Under their watchful eyes and without another word I started to walk carefully towards the only ugly door in the room.

I could see Edward out of the corner of my eye and feel Bella's presence right behind me but I didn't think to acknowledge them.

When I made it to the door I pushed it open and emotionlessly held it aside for the other two before letting it swing closed behind me.

Taking a moment stand in the pitch darkness at the top of the stairs, I could hear the sounds of my brother trying to communicate with me but I was too numb to put anything he was saying into coherent words.

I must have been standing there for some time before action suddenly kicked in and I went flying down the stairs.

Hearing the other two stumbling down behind me, it was a miracle I didn't miss a step in the pitch black that was all I could see in front of my face, and go tumbling head first down the steep row of stairs.

Finally reaching the door below I pushed it open with so much force it smacked into the wall on the other side with a load bang, making all the people inside jump in shock.

"What the hell?" Liam exclaimed as I ran towards, and dropped to my knees on my mattress. "Where the hell have you three been?" the Irishman demanded as Edward and Bella barged into the room behind me.

Rummaging around under my pillow my hand finally clasped around my inhaler, which I immediately brought to my mouth in order to give myself a desperately needed puff of air, or _three_.

When I was done I clutched it to my chest like a doll.

"Is someone going to tell us what happened up there?" Liam asked, the frustration gleaming in his eyes like headlights. "What happened to your arm" he inquired, pointing at me. I gave my arm a quick glance to see the redness already turning dark.

'_That will bruise' _he had promised.

Slowly my surroundings started to come back to life around me and everything started to make sense again. Everyone was staring at me like I was the star act at a circus as I held my head in my hands.

"I am such an idiot." I murmured to myself disgustedly.

"An idiot?" Edward exclaimed in a laugh that was on the verge of hysterical. "You're _unhinged, _you're a freaking _psychopath_. If I could, I'd have you admitted into a mental facility before you could say _crazy." _He screamed, throwing his hands in the air like he was part of a Mexican wave.

_Now_ everyone was staring at him like he had just grown another head, but I looked down at my quivering hands instead, not able to face his fury.

"Edward-" Bella started, placing her hand on his shoulder.

"No" he growled shrugging her hand away in his anger. "What the hell were you thinking?" He pointed at me. "Were you even thinking at all?" he demanded.

"Alright everybody just _calm_ down" Sue instructed with the authority of a mother. "Now will one of you please explain to us what happened up there?" she asked looking between the three of us.

Since Edward was too busy glowering at me and I was too busy hoping the ground would swallow me into oblivion, Bella was the only one left to answer.

"Jasper is back," She murmured. "-and uh, Alice…Alice…"

"_Alice _doesn't know when to leave things the hell alone." Edward finished.

I couldn't take it anymore.

"Don't you get it? He was going to _kill _you." I exclaimed, finally looking up at my brother through watery eyes.

"You don't know th-"

"I do." I nodded frantically, cutting him off. "I do know it. I don't know how, but I do! If I hadn't of come in between the two of you he would of beat you to death just to prove a point. So yeah I'm_ crazy_ but at least you're here to make the diagnosis" I responded shakily. "-and If you think for a second that I _wanted _him to nearly crush my arm to pieces, that I _wanted _to be threatened and humiliated in front of all of them and you, then maybe _my _craziness is in fact a twin thing." I spoke lowly, before tumbling down onto my side and burring my face into the pillow.

_You didn't even ask me if I was okay, _I thought at him as a sob racked through my body.

I didn't care that I hadn't bothered to get changed out of the grey dress. I didn't care as I heard Edward stuttering over words in the background or as I felt someone sitting down beside me to place a comforting hand on my shoulder, and I didn't care when Bella started to fill in the blanks for everyone.

_My_ eyes were closed but all I could see were _his. _

Part of me was screaming at myself. How could I have been so stupid in trying to play his game? I had made myself an easy target by facing him and now he was onto me like a cat with a piece of string.

At the same time something was telling me it was inevitable. I had tried so hard to seem genuine, yet it was as if everything I had been feeling was written across my forehead in sharpie.

_Maybe I can avoid him. _I thought, but I knew that was useless…How could I avoid him, this was his house.

"_See you around sweetheart." _He had said, and "_See you around sweetheart" _was all that was echoing around in my head as I tried and failed to fall asleep.

**:) I appreciate the reviews, they are great so far. I'll get the next chapters up in a day or two.**

**- Emmie x**


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